Category / Advertising & Design

by peter

House of 4-H Cards

4HCardGIFBlog2

 

Pigs that fly, steers that sell themselves, a course for horses – all made from cards.

Sometimes good design can act as a trigger that unleashes a flood of creativity. This is what happened when Enbridge Inc. came to Sasges Inc. as the national sponsor of 4-H Canada’s 100th anniversary celebrations last year. They asked us to develop a commemorative gift that would be distributed to all of 4-H members, and to create an online campaign to promote engagement across the country. . . .

Read the blog post I wrote for Calgary’s Sasges Inc., talking about the great multimedia project they undertook for Enbridge Inc., helping to sponsor the 100th-anniversary celebrations of 4-H Canada.

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by peter

Know When to Shut Up

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As a copywriter you have to know when to keep your words to yourself. Sadly, there are great pictures and layouts that can speak for themselves, with only a little  support. These are ads created by Chris Hoy of Rivet Design for Ballentine Construction, a cottage and home renovation company based in Point au Baril, Ontario. Virginia MacDonald‘s photographs of cottage interiors are so gorgeous that the rooms speak for themselves. I merely report what they say and add a tagline.

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by peter

Annual Reports Aren’t Dead

Left: Scott Thornley + Company’s annual report for the University of Toronto Scarborough. Right: The Works Design’s annual report for Corby Distilleries.

Left: Scott Thornley + Company’s annual report for the University of Toronto Scarborough. Right: The Works Design’s annual report for Corby Distilleries.

After working 15-hour days for a month to meet deadlines for two annual reports, I can say that the market for ARs isn’t dead, though I may be.

I had heard from many designers that AR work had dried up with diminished budgets as the reports went online, reducing print runs dramatically. What once had been a design stable with eye-popping budgets had become a pain in the ass no longer worth the nail-biting deadline pressure.

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by peter

Let’s Talk Verbal Identities

Photo by Giedrius.

Photo by Giedrius.

So verbal identities are a thing. . . . When did verbal identities become a thing?

I recently met Scott Christie, the creative director at Interbrand in Toronto. Scott mentioned in passing that the practice of creating ‘verbal identities’ was a big thing, with a lot of writers devoted to it, at the New York Interbrand office. And now they were trying to introduce the discipline to Canada.

I nodded sagely then rushed home and googled ‘verbal identity interbrand’ and got this  explanation:

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by peter

The End, My Friend

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A feature that I wrote for the relaunch issue of Applied Arts Magazine, featuring a new editorial focus and design.

In the beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble . . .
—T.S. Eliot, “Four Quartets”

This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
—Jim Morrison, “The End”

In the beginning, advertising made a choice that it would one day regret. In 1877, former bookkeeping clerk James Walter Thompson bought New York-based Carlton and Smith, which sold advertising space in religious journals. He paid $500 for the agency, and $800 for its furniture, and renamed it after himself. After starting to place ads in women’s journals, JWT came up with the bright idea of developing creative content for clients, so he could sell more ad space. Creative services, acting as a kind of loss leader, became part of the agency’s offering.

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