Painting Your Jalopy

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During a four-month contract, working with Ariad Communications, I wrote daily blog posts for the Yellow Pages Group, driving traffic to specific categories of their advertisers. Here’s one from the Automotive section:

As a car owner, a new auto body paint job is one of the most satisfying improvements you can make to your chariot. Here’s how to do the best paint job you can.

Perhaps your car is looking dingy, or it’s just time for a different look. Painting your car can be one of the most satisfying improvements you can undertake—like changing your hair colour. . . . Read the entire post here.

How Much Debt is too Much Debt?

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Canadians like their stuff. They’re not afraid to go into debt for their new cars, homes, large-screen TVs and other items, big ticket and small.  As a result, many of us owe way too much.

Moody’s, one of the world’s leading credit agencies,  recently gave Canada an AAA rating for its “relatively solid economic performance” and stable banking system. But at the same time it warns that the country’s high household debt levels and soaring house prices pose “a potential risk” to those strengths.

Even though debt isn’t usually a good thing, sometimes it can be justified. Rather than simply buying something we can’t afford, debt can be a shrewd way to get ahead if you’re reasonably sure that you will have the means to pay it off. . . . Read the entire blog post I wrote for Richard Killen & Associates.

Creating a Campaign With Legs

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Great milestones shouldn’t be allowed to tiptoe by. I worked with Rita Sasges and her team at Sasges Inc., the dynamic Calgary design and branding studio, to create a campaign with legs for 40th anniversary of the Calgary TELUS Convention Centre (CTCC).

The marketing effort leveraged Sasges Inc.’s 2012 Be Part of the Energy rebrand for Calgary as the robust platform to celebrate CTCC’s  four decades as the city’s premier meeting and conference destination. It attracts some 250,000 visitors a year, helping to keep the downtown vital.

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Art for Government’s Sake

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I’ve completed projects for two Calgary clients that underscore the truth that a thing’s value isn’t found in its price tag.

Or, as Oscar Wilde said famously, “What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

The cynic in this case is the government, whose financial support of art, art education and public facilities more and more depends on proving adequate returns on investment.

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Quality Not Price

 

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Earlier this year I did a small website job for a Newmarket construction company, Reno Industries. In the booming housing market, Reno has no shortage of business, so positions itself for its quality, as opposed to price. The site, designed by Michael Trapani of Incube8, focuses on how the company brings together a group of not just licensed tradesmen but “likeminded craftsmen,” including a master painter and decorator from Italy, who, like Michelangelo, has done some of his most stunning work in churches.