News
Turning the Table: Stuart Thursby
October 25, 2021
Stuart Thursby is the Principal & Creative Director of Stack Creative, a creative agency that’s rooted in digital but nimble enough to flex with the ongoing shifts in marketing and design. Before opening Stack, his career included stints at ...
Be Better Man
October 25, 2021
Man up. Take it like a man. Be a man. Men are presented with these idioms of manliness from a young age fueling toxicity and silent suffering that is only recently coming to bear. According to CAMH, among Canadians of all ages, four of every five sui ...
Turning the Table: Anand Iyer
October 15, 2021
Anand Iyer is Associate Creative Director at Toronto-based No Fixed Address and one of our 2021 Student Awards judges. Anand is a creative problem solver who's has been much awarded globally by D&AD, Cannes, The One Show, the Clios, The Webbys, ...
Debt Isn’t Child’s Play
October 12, 2021
Move over Friends, Squid Game is set to become the most streamed Netflix show ever. The blood-soaked show is on everyone's lips and social feeds, and features 456 players who are deeply in debt playing games with grave consequences for a chance to ...
Gravy Plane
October 12, 2021
As we recover from the Thanksgiving long weekend, we can’t think of a more appropriate campaign to share than Broken Heart Love Affair’s “It’s all gravy” for Air Miles. The campaign is all about the extras, the gravy on ...
Turning the Table: Regan Fraser
October 8, 2021
Through all of her schooling, our 2021 Student Awards judge Regan Fraser had terrible grades in all subjects with only two exceptions—Art and Literature. After completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts, she eventually found her perfect fit in advert ...
Change We Can’t Spare
October 7, 2021
In a given year there are between 35,000-40,000 Canadian youth experiencing homelessness in Canada. A new campaign by FCB Canada for The Home Depot Canada Foundation to promote their TradeWorx program a program that isn’t just about housing or ...
Cancer Pwned
October 7, 2021
Cancer’s MO is to multiply, overwhelm and invade. It is a marauding disease that divides and conquers the body cell by cell. But its all-encompassing possessiveness is not limited to the corporeal; it can also overwhelm our minds and spirit a ...
ANNOUNCING THE 2021 ADVERTISING AWARDS WINNERS
October 7, 2021
Mah Ferraz, LA ROSALÍA, Craft Editing Video - Single, 2020 Advertising Awards winner. THE 2021 ADVERTISING AWARDS WINNERS ARE THE MOST INFLUENTIAL IN THE INFLUENCE INDUSTRY Advertising is the business of creating interest, and the most int ...
Wes World
October 7, 2021
If it is the task of the designer and the visual artist to re-imagine the world, take it apart and put it back together again in ways that others would never have imagined possible, few artists have done so as beguilingly as Wes Anderson. Let̵ ...
Campfire Emoji Songs
October 6, 2021
Surely the campfire is the earliest human gathering place, as we imagine our prehistoric ancestors weren’t belting out “Rock Lobster” in a karaoke cave. Campfires, and campfire songs, bring us together and warm more than just our ...
An Identity that Shows Some Spine
October 4, 2021
The phrase “timeless design” is an oft-overused platitude to praise something that typically has a liberal use of Helvetica or recalls a chic Copenhagen living room. However, sometimes a piece of design comes along that is so poised and perfect ...
Turning the Table: Stephen Flynn
October 1, 2021
Our 2021 Student Awards judge Stephen Flynn has done something all of us have often dreamed about, but few of us have actually acted upon: he forged his own path. After working at multiple advertising agencies in Atlantic Canada, Stephen realized h ...
YouTubEH
September 29, 2021
While the fifteenth video of a Finnish couple crushing things with a hydraulic press washes over you in a mixture of ASMR and playground bug squashing reverie, you may not be thinking about what YouTube contributes to the Canadian economy. According ...
Return to the Picture Palace
September 28, 2021
Legend has it that the initial screenings of “L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat” in 1895 would cause the audience to leap from their seats and run to the back of the theatre for fear of being pummeled by the eponymous train arriving at t ...
Way 2 Hungry
September 27, 2021
Champagne Papi recently sired his sixth studio album with a slightly stupefying cover featuring a Warholian-like grid of brightly coloured pregnant women emojis. It was met with a degree of befuddlement and pregnant pauses, but it definitely got pe ...
Moving Moveable Type
September 27, 2021
On September 30, 2021 Canada will mark the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The day honours the lost First Nations, Inuit and Métis children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities. In the lead up to th ...
Turning the Table: James Sadler
September 24, 2021
James Sadler is an award-winning ECD that has worked for top-tier agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. He spent the last 15+ years helping to build local and global brands including SaskTel, Vancity, TELUS, BC Dairy, Vancouver Port Authority, Ad ...
Golf Podcast Helps You Avoid Rough…Sleep
September 23, 2021
We imagine many Canadians dream about golf. Probably most often between those post-lunch and pre-five o’clock hours on a Monday when the weekend’s game is still fresh in the memory like recently cut grass. While bogeying hole after hole can induc ...
Good Mail Day
September 23, 2021
There is something particularly wonderful about physical mail. The ritual of going to the mailbox, seeing an envelope, maybe it even has a handwritten address, but it most certainly has a stamp. That most functional piece of art and design, and, in ...
nabs Debuts the Podcast AD CHATS with Frank Palmer
September 22, 2021
Have you ever been at an industry gathering and from across the bar you noticed two titans talking attentively? You may begin to wonder what trade secrets and bon mots are being trafficked during this tête-à-tête, but alas you are likely not a lip ...
Coopting Commentary
September 21, 2021
There is something particularly satisfying about sports commentary with an English accent. Be it the crack of a cricket bat or a Lewis Hamilton crack up, there is just something a bit more genteel about how our neighbours across the pond, whose Que ...
Turning the Table: Jean-Phillipe Dugal
September 17, 2021
Our 2021 Student Awards judge, Jean-Philippe Dugal began his career in 2010 in the design studio at TUX, an agency that specializes in fashion and design. He is humbled by the acclaim his work has received for renowned brands including Aldo, Elizabet ...
A Summit to Savour
September 16, 2021
The political summit, that well orchestrated piece of political theatre, is often not the most flavourful of experiences. Hands are shook, or nowadays fists are bumped, culturally relevant gifts are exchanged, and awkward photos are poised for, all ...
No One Likes the Streets
September 10, 2021
In a Harris Poll/LEGO survey that covered the United States, Britain and China, 29% of children aged 8-12 stated they wanted to be a “YouTuber” or, in other words, an influencer. This was three times as many who wanted to be an astronaut, that ...
Turning the Table: Cody Sennyuen
September 10, 2021
Cody Sennyuen is a Senior Designer at Quake in Toronto and Alumni of Humber College. He was one of our 2021 Student Awards judges, tasked with judging an impressive crop of future talent. When asked to provide a bio, Cody wrote: "Some people grow up ...
Define Normal
September 9, 2021
The concept of “normal” was subjective at best before the pandemic, and out right illusory more often. For most, the “new normal” of the pandemic—work-from-home, virtual meetings, an increase in takeout—is an unattainable privilege best ...
Play With Your Food
September 8, 2021
Bananas are a diet staple of one of video gaming’s most enduring and iconic characters, everyone’s prime primate, Donkey Kong. Traditional joysticks, gamepads, motion remotes, and even a set of bongos have controlled Donkey Kong across his advent ...
Warhol's Variations: what fifty Marilyns can do for brand identity
September 7, 2021
How many Andy Warhol retrospectives can you see and still enjoy? For me, it took a year and a half of Covid lockdown to give the ubiquitous American pop artist a fresh appeal. The exhibition, organized by Tate Modern in London, in collaboration with ...
Design the Evolution
September 7, 2021
Branded digital content brought to you by Vancouver Film School’s (VFS) second annual Digital Design Conference (DDC) is set to bring together the design, creative technology and visual communication communities. Over the course of two days, We ...
The Best Election Ad? Unifor Gets My Vote
August 26, 2021
Frame from Unifor’s anti-Conservative Party ad: a very effective send-up of a very tired trope Some months ago this columnist commented on the tired old trope most often used in automotive advertising: that of the shiny new car or truck drivi ...
Enter Your Labour before Labour Day
August 25, 2021
lg2, Montreal, QC, CCM - ALL OUT, Craft Editing Video - Single, 2020 Advertising Awards winner. While no one will chide you for wearing white after Labour Day in this day and age (and how did that all start anyhow?) you will definitely be chiding ...
Building Representation Brick by Brick
August 24, 2021
While they are not fun to step on or clean up, building toys are beloved by children and adults alike regardless of ability. Representation in toys and media is key to engendering a sense of belonging for children with disabilities, and to help celeb ...
Have it Your Bay
August 19, 2021
Nobody likes being told what do, let alone what to wear, so instead of telling you what’s in or, shudder, what’s out, this fall season FCB Canada and The Bay have launched a new campaign calling on Canadians to create their own Bay. Promoting se ...
Come in like an Un-Wrecking Ball
August 18, 2021
A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made the realities of climate change painfully clear, we, or rather the 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, have wrecked the planet. The impacts of climate c ...
Money (That's What I Hear)
August 16, 2021
While Abba asserts money is “funny,” Pink Floyd proclaims “it’s a gas,” and Eric B. and Rakim want to be “paid in full,” and while those songs may be about money they aren’t composed by it. However, Interac and longtime creative age ...
OK Dairy. Dairy, OK.
August 12, 2021
Traditional ads for dairy tend to focus on the pastoral aspects of pasteurization: shots of cattle, early morning farms, and salt-of-the-earth individuals who do the work to bring that bottle to your table. These are often wonderful campaigns, howeve ...
john st. Blocks Off Some Time to Party
August 11, 2021
Gamefruitpulp, a Toronto gamer and YouTuber, has spent the last several years recreating Toronto’s blocks out of, well, blocks, in Minecraft. His 1:1 recreation of the Big Smoke is just one of the many real life recreations in the bestselling vid ...
How to Drink Beer and Influence People
August 10, 2021
In 1936 Dale Carnegie helped launch the self-help genre with his How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book has gone on to sell more than 30 million copies worldwide making it one of the best-selling books of all time. Fast forward to 2021 and ...
Procrustean Bed in Pink or Blue
August 9, 2021
Gender, like colour, is a spectrum. However, colour is often used to enforce and perpetuate gender norms (XX, pink and XY, blue). We’ve all seen the occasionally catastrophic gender reveals and their preponderance of pink and blue, let alone toy an ...
What is “The Trebek Initiative” for $400,000, Alex
August 4, 2021
To celebrate the birthday of everyone’s favourite host, Alex Trebek, the The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) and the National Geographic Society (NGS), with the support of agency partner, No Fixed Address (NFA), introduced The Trebek Ini ...
(What’s the Story) Morning Beverage?
July 30, 2021
We’ve all seen a cartoon of parched individual struggling through the desert only to suddenly be presented with the sweet relief of a glimmering pool and lush, fruit-filled vegetation. Just as suddenly as it appears, the bower of bliss disappears, ...
2021 Design and Student Awards Winners Galleries Now Online
July 29, 2021
Best Studio, THE MOST COVETED PAPER PRODUCT OF 2020, Promotional-Premium/Gift Item - Single, 2021 Design Awards winner. The 2021 Design and Student Awards Winners galleries are now online to fuel your inspiration. One thing you will notice whi ...
Buzz Bombs and Brand Boners
July 29, 2021
For years, I’ve been looking for an excuse to reread Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 novel, Gravity’s Rainbow, and now I think I’ve found it. What’s my excuse? Well, as you’ve no doubt noticed, the space race has been hijacked by a trio of brand o ...
Mammoth @#$%&!holes
July 28, 2021
The inuksuk is a stone landmark used by the Inuit, Iñupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America. Historically used as a way finding or a marker of food sources, veneration, campsites, and other places of import, ...
Able to Leap a Stack of Cars in a Single Bound
July 23, 2021
When writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born artist Joe Shuster’s creation Superman was brought to the airwaves via radio program he needed a catchy phrase that would immediately identify what was so super about this man. Cue pulp writer Bob Maxwel ...
Turning the Table: Barbara Woolley
July 23, 2021
Barbara Woolley is the “Woolley” of Hambly & Woolley. As a founding Partner and Principal of H&W, Woolley is responsible for a wide range of clients including Harry Rosen, University of Toronto, Donald Ellis Gallery, Canada Post, and Part ...
Bar Band
July 22, 2021
When John Lee Hooker, one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time, covered Rudy Toombs’ “One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer” we are pretty sure he wasn’t pining for musical education, but if the beer he received was a Notes ...
Groove is in the Partnership
July 21, 2021
Fluevog’s have covered the toes of everyone from Gaga to Mr. Jon Snow himself Kit Harrington. The legendary label is the footwear brand for those who like life a bit funkier, and few are funkier than Deee-Lite’s Lady Miss Kier. It comes as no ...
Time Piece-za
July 20, 2021
You don’t have to be an anthropomorphic adolescent amphibian with a predilection for martial arts to have pizza at all hours. While a broken clock is only right twice a day, 7 West, a Toronto-based 24/7 restaurant, wants you to know that pizza is r ...
Neon Walls
July 19, 2021
Allister Lee is a Toronto-based graphic artist who specializes in consultation, branding and the creation of graphic materials. He has worked with top apparel and retail brands, and alongside his commercial practice, he has developed a unique artisti ...
Creeper Meet Combine
July 16, 2021
Minecraft, for those of you not a part of Gen Z or who have been spending the last decade under a block, is the best-selling videogame of all time. With its open world, “sandbox” gameplay procedurally generated 3D world it allows users a near inf ...
Turning the Table: Richard Colbourne
July 16, 2021
A bold typographic shorthand for Brookfield Place. Richard Colbourne is the executive creative director at Addison, New York. His design work is housed in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, and has been exhibited at th ...
Sub(stantial)aru
July 15, 2021
Subaru takes pride in their vehicles’ go-anywhere capability with their rally-bred AWD model lineup, there are few places a Subaru isn’t a perfect fit. Except for maybe OOH. With the launch of their largest vehicle ever, the Ascent, Toronto- ...
From Farm to Chortle
July 14, 2021
Puns, like fruits, nuts and veggies, aren’t made, they’re grown. They sprout from the fertile soil of language and bathed in the sunlight of silly. California Grown’s new campaign produced by Mering, a company of The Shipyard, and directed by c ...
Monianne Remembered
July 13, 2021
The legendary Canadian photographer Monianne passed away in June. In the spring of 1989 we had the honour of having her as one of our cover features. Please find that feature scanned from the original issue below. ...
Go With the Flo
July 13, 2021
BREAKING NEWS: Homework sucks. Homework while stuck at home sucks even more. Unfortunately, homework is a fact of scholastic life; fortunately, Flo is here to make it a whole lot less sucky. Allprof is an assistance platform in Quebec that assists ...
Turning the Table: Marie-Pier Gilbert
July 9, 2021
Marie-Pier Gilbert is Creative Assistant Director, Design at lg2 in Montreal where she has been a designer for nearly a decade. She has worked on major brand and packaging transformations for Boréale, Keurig (Timothy's), Lesters, Naturoney, and Natr ...
Turning the Table: Rafael Esquer
July 2, 2021
Rafael Esquer is the CEO and creative director at Alfalfa Studio, his SoHo based design firm, which he started in 2004 in New York, where he has been a Manhattanite for the past 20 years. Esquer is a native of Mexico’s Senora desert, and was educat ...
Uneasy Yeezy
June 30, 2021
No matter what you think about his space alien crocs, there is no denying that Kanye West has added fashion mogul to his already impressive resume of culturally influential roles. The man has clout. It is no surprise then that the ads for his Yeezy ...
Canada’s Got Dirt on its Brand
June 29, 2021
Back in 2017, the year of Canada’s 150th birthday, I wrote a feature for this magazine that speculated on Canada’s brand as it was perceived then and what it might look like going into the future. Well, the future is here and the brand doesn’ ...
Taking the Pulse of 2021 Young Blood Award Winners
June 29, 2021
Mosaic North America, QUATREAU PACKAGING, Young Blood Packaging Design - Series, 2021 Design Awards winner. Zoé Arseneau is Bathurst, NB based graphic designer and art director who works at Toronto-based Mosaic. Navigating timezones isn't the on ...
TURNING THE TABLE: CAROL HUNG
June 25, 2021
Carol Hung is a designer at john st., but she didn’t start her career as one. While studying design at York University she became enamoured of the advertising world and started as an art director straight out of school. While she learned the impo ...
ANNOUNCING THE 2021 STUDENT AWARDS WINNERS
June 23, 2021
Bela Bhushan, FUJIFILM: SKATER DAZE, Video Advertising - Single, 2020 Student Awards winner. WITH OUR 2021 STUDENT AWARDS WINNERs THE FOCUS IS ON THE FUTURE. Every year we are blown away by the professionalism of the work submitted to our Student ...
Taking the Pulse of 2021 Young Blood Award Winners
June 22, 2021
Daughter Creative, CABIN – BEST WE CAN, Young Blood Motion Design - Series, 2021 Design Awards winner. After graduating from the Alberta College of Art & Design, 2021 Design Award winner in the Young Blood category, Ben Magnus cut his teeth ...
Heavy Metal Thunder, Protect Your Head Out on the Highway
June 18, 2021
For the past few years, Sikh motorcyclists have been exempt from wearing a helmet. This has allowed turban-wearing riders to adhere to an essential part of their faith and identity. In other words, to be their free, authentic selves while participati ...
Turning the Table: Fidel Peña
June 18, 2021
Fidel Peña is a Creative Director and Co-founder of Underline Studio who has worked on projects including identity and branding for the University of Toronto, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Harvard Medical School, as well as campaigns and publicatio ...
Not OK Android
June 17, 2021
Artificial intelligence and robotics continue to make our lives fitter, happier, more productive, comfortable, etc., but if you’ve ever had a pleasant, vaguely English-accented, voice tell you “sorry, I can’t find what you’re looking for” o ...
Dig These Graves
June 16, 2021
“The end is near,” the favourite phrase of those who deem sandwich boards fashionable and call soapboxes hotspots. These days, however, the phrase is also bringing a modicum of hope as it signals a return some semblance of “normal,” a loaded ...
The Flowers of Flavour
June 15, 2021
Chinatowns around the world have been especially hard hit during the pandemic. Canada is no exception. With the rise of anti-Asian racism on the rise, traditional restaurants struggling or disappearing altogether and, in the case of Montreal’s hist ...
Taking the Pulse of 2021 Young Blood Award Winners
June 15, 2021
Zoë Boudreau, ROOKS BOOKKEEPING LOGO REDESIGN, Young Blood Design - Single, 2021 Design Awards winner. Zoë Boudreau is Vancouver-based art director specializing in clever, concept driven designs, something readily apparent in her 2021 Design Awa ...
A Fountain of Prizes
June 14, 2021
It was a very long winter. Perhaps you helped brighten the blustery days of December with an Advent calendar filled with treats or tchotchkes. There is nothing better than giving yourself a little gift every day, except for maybe having someone else ...
Turning the Table: Kristian Hay
June 11, 2021
Kristian Hay is the co-founder and creative director at the award-winning boutique design studio ZAK in Vancouver, BC. Hay is intimately connected to all aspects of every project that ZAK is a part of, guiding the visual process from start to finis ...
Tiny Home, Big Message
June 9, 2021
Sometimes a big problem requires a small solution. To that end, the tiptap foundation, working with the community at A Better Tent City (ABTC), is launching a tap to give™ campaign designed by Toronto-based agency Wunderman Thompson Canada. The s ...
The King of Cups
June 9, 2021
LeBron James is unequivocally one of the best basketball players of all time, and a pretty excellent human to boot, but we all have our weak spots. King James’ just so happens to be on the top of his 6ft 9in frame. During the 2020 NBA playoffs fans ...
Cocktails from the Crypt
June 8, 2021
Paula Wilson Photography, ELEVATED SPIRITS, Self-Promotion Photography – Series, 2021 Photography Awards winner. The reason why we refer to some forms of alcohol is a matter of some conjecture. There is no denying, however, the conjuring power ...
Turning the Table: Howard Poon
June 4, 2021
Howard Poon is VP of design at DDB Canada in Edmonton, where he collaborates with a cross-disciplinary team of strategists, creatives and designers to use insight-driven design to build exceptional brands. Poon has a passion for nurturing young talen ...
Maple Snaps
June 3, 2021
Lip syncs, sounds, dances, and more will now be getting a little maple flavour as Toronto-based Zulubot, the creative content and digital innovation studio from creative agency Zulu Alpha Kilo, has partnered with Snap, the patent company of Snapchat ...
Communing with 2021 Illustration Awards Community Winners
June 1, 2021
Annick Poirier, OPUS HOTEL VERSANTE - BRITISH COLUMBIA, Small Community Illustration - Single, 2021 Illustration Awards winner. Laurentians-based illustrator Annick Poirier has worn many hats in her graphic arts career before settling in to illus ...
Beautifully Alive
May 28, 2021
Living Beauty Inc. develops and inspires meaningful connections between the most innovative brands, trusted retailers and respected professionals in the industry. Founder and CEO Mariam White launched Living Beauty Inc. in 2015, as a way to share h ...
Turning the Table: Danielle Murrell Cox
May 28, 2021
Danielle Murrell Cox is a Montreal-based illustrator, designer and author. She is the founder of DMCOX.co. An alumnus of the graphic design program at Dawson College, Cox, in addition to her past work as a graphic designer, has also entered the wor ...
Get with the Program(matic)
May 27, 2021
Back in 1999, I wrote an article in Adbusters Magazine, at the end of which I described myself as someone who “builds brands by day and tears them apart by night.” It was a satirical nod to the cognitive dissonance of being both a practitioner an ...
Taking the Pulse of 2021 Young Blood Award Winners
May 25, 2021
Chloe Lukas, DEMURE, Young Blood Photography - Single, 2021 Photography Awards winner. Chloe Lukas is a Toronto born and based photographer and winner of a 2021 Photography Award in the Young Blood category. As you will see in her answers to ou ...
Turning the Table: Gary Holme
May 21, 2021
Gary Holme is a Detroit-raised and Toronto-based creative who has been an Art Director, a CD, and an ECD for some of the best agencies in the world, including Chiat\Day, Sapient Nitro, FCB, Publicis, Y&R, and J. Walter Thompson. He is currently ...
We Want to Stay at Home, That’s an Order
May 18, 2021
Seniors are taking a stand in the place where they live in this witty and surprising new campaign from HomeEquity Bank and Zulu Alpha Kilo. “Now more than ever, people are realizing why their homes are more important than just being an asset. Ther ...
Taking the Pulse of 2021 Young Blood Award Winners
May 18, 2021
Lu Xu, DEATH AND CELEBRATION OF LIFE, Young Blood Illustration - Series, 2021 Illustration Awards winner. Lu Xu is a creative polymath having worked as a copywriter, marketer, creative director, translator, illustrator, and graphic designer. He ...
Turning the Table: Clare Chow
May 14, 2021
Clare Chow is an independent designer that has had a truly enviable track record having collaborated at agencies such as lg2, Bruce Mau Design, Huge, Rethink, Puncture, and Jacknife. Her sterling CV represents a 14-year career that has spanned prin ...
Face Up to Face Wash
May 12, 2021
We’ve all had a parent or caretaker tell us to “wash behind our ears,” but have you ever, Gatsby-like, have a billboard speak directly to you, specifically your hygienic habits? Well, certain dwellers of apartment complexes in the GTA have than ...
iClean
May 11, 2021
As we save our 1000th file to our desktop labeled .v1_v2_v3.5_final.FINAL_FINAL.psd we can relate to this new campaign by TBWA\Helsinki for CleanMyMac. The campaign portrays the worst possible scenarios for your Mac to be bogged down by unused bit ...
Taking the Pulse of 2021 Young Blood Award Winners
May 11, 2021
Paul Twa, 2020 YEAR IN REVIEW, Young Blood Illustration Single, 2021 Illustration Awards winner. Paul Twa is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Edmonton, Alberta and 2021 Illustration Award winner in the Young Blood category his piec ...
Sweet to be Salty
May 10, 2021
Vancouver-based creative agency Pendo wanted to promote the value of disruptive creative and make their clients smile, a tough task in this unprecedented™ year, and rather than let their pent up emotions disappear like tears in rain they produced ...
Invisi-brew
May 5, 2021
We’ve all found ways of blurring out embarrassing piles of laundry or not-work-appropriate posters from the background of our video calls, but R&B Brewing and Vancouver-based design and advertising firm Saint Bernadine Mission Communications ...
Opening Doors
May 5, 2021
Last year an open letter Call for Equity from the People Of Colour in Advertising And Marketing (POCAM), highlighted the injustice and inequality in the advertising industry. Zulu Alpha Kilo was one of many Canadian agencies that signed the called th ...
Cold as Ice Doesn't Have to Be a Sacrifice
May 3, 2021
Unridden — Go Where You Feel Most Alive from Ian Isak on Vimeo. Sequoia Content shared this absolutely bracing spot directed by new roster member Ian Iask for the Copenhagen-based cold-water brand Unridden. In a year where stay-at-home became a ...
Make Your House a Smart Home
April 30, 2021
ecobee is a Canadian smart home provider that is redefining what a home can be. It is fitting; therefore, that their new campaign produced with FCB/SIX reimagines the very idea of the home.Having already established their brand in the smart thermosta ...
A Little Brand with a Big Heart
April 29, 2021
HOW A LOCAL EATERY GOES THE DISTANCE TO DELIVER AN UNRIVALLED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE THAT MOST BIG BRANDS WOULD KILL FOR The pandemic has exposed both the best and the worst of human behaviour. The same applies to brands. There are those which have us ...
Fast Animals Fast (and Slow Ones Do Too)
April 28, 2021
Since 2016, Vancouver-based art director, graphic designer, visual artist, and 2013-14 Student Awards winner Mustaali Raj has undertaken 30 Days of Ramadan project: a daily creative exploration of personal reflections and insights during the spiritua ...
Dealing Cancer a Low Blow
April 28, 2021
The Ballsy Ribbon takes the well-known cancer ribbon, doubles it, and flips it upside down to look like a pair of testicles Testicular cancer is the most common solid tumour in young men and the cases of it are on the rise, but awareness levels a ...
Deconstructing Dine-In
April 27, 2021
The pandemic hit Canadian restaurants incredibly hard. Stay-at-home meant no eating out resulting in 10,000 restaurants across Canada shuttering for good in 2020. In an arena in which 60% of restaurants fail within their first three years, survival ...
Financial Flexibility
April 23, 2021
Toronto-based graphic design studio Blok has produced a brand identity for Mexico City-based digital investment company AAGO. Known for their lateral thinking and foresight, AAGO is a disruptor in the financial sphere. Blok’s identity “explores ...
Turning the Table: Cédric Rossel
April 22, 2021
Cédric Rossel is the co-founder and art director at the Swiss-based creative design studio WePlayDesign. The diverse agency touts their ability to cover all areas of creativity from art direction to type design, visual identity to motion design, i ...
Photography and Illustration Winners Gallery Now Online
April 22, 2021
Myriam Wares, LA SOLIDAIRE, Packing Illustration - Single, 2021 Illustration Awards winner. The 2021 Photography and Illustration Award winners are now online in our Winners Gallery. Whether you choose to peruse the photos in our Photography gal ...
Communing with 2021 Photography Awards Community Winners
April 22, 2021
Kristy Boyce, BOMBOY - EXPERIMENTS IN COLOUR WITH DRAG PERFORMER, BOM BAE, Shoe-String Budget Photography - Series, 2021 Photography Awards winner. Kristy Boyce is a Toronto-based photographer and multimedia artist. Boyce got her start as a phot ...
Giving Fairtrade a Fair Shake
April 21, 2021
Do-gooders get a bad rap. Even the name inspires mostly negative connotations, but doing good can be fun. Trust us, or better yet, trust Equifruit and TUX Creative Co. who have created a new campaign to show the fun side of do-goodery, we think you ...
Stamped Across History
April 16, 2021
It seems almost unfathomable that at one time a person diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes faced a death sentence. However, this was just the case 100 years ago before the discovery of insulin. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of this milestone medica ...
Do the Side Hustle
April 13, 2021
Creative people are creative people, period. They are rarely pigeonholed into one niche, genre, skillset, or client brief. This pandemic year has allowed us to pursue some of our creative passions off the side of our newly assembled work-from-home de ...
Fresh, Fresher, Freshest
April 12, 2021
How do you make brand recognized for freshness even fresher, a visual refresh, of course. Vancouver-based agency Subplot Design Inc. worked with long-time partners Petcurean, producer of premium quality pet food brands available in more than 35 cou ...
Relaxed Linen
April 8, 2021
Boston Pizza and john st. take dinnertime weight off your shoulders and put it in your lap. Several years ago, the GOAT of YA literature Judy Blume, in conversation with Lena Dunham, discussed how her husband had tried to buy her a human-sized thund ...
Metropolis Mosaic
April 7, 2021
Leah Kwak, THE CITY, Illustration - Series, 2020 Student Awards winner. Cities are a study in contrasts and Leah Kwak revels in the juxtaposition. As the cities in our native Ontario prepare for another total lockdown, it is becoming harder a ...
Child’s Play Safe
April 6, 2021
Children of the Street and Will demonstrate the dangers of cute games. In an era where going outside and playing with your friends isn’t always an option for kids, gaming has filled a gap for play and connectivity. However, there are more danger ...
Udderly Ridiculous
April 6, 2021
RATESDOTCA and Zulu Alpha Kilo produce a campaign you can’t unsee. Bart Simpson has spent decades imploring us not to have a cow, but when it comes to car insurance, maybe we should start having one. According to RATESDOTCA 77% of policyholders in ...
Shared Space
April 5, 2021
Vancouver-based hcma’s rebrand brings to the foreground its unique approach and interdisciplinary communication design capabilities. Communities are more than the buildings they occupy, but those buildings are an integral part of the community. Sh ...
ANNOUNCING THE 2021 DESIGN AWARDS WINNERS
April 1, 2021
PAPRIKA, MUST TV AD, Motion-Short - Single, 2020 Design Awards winner. Our 2021 design awards winners have an eye for detail, and now you can turn your eyes on them. Design is an inherent part of our lives that often goes unnoticed. From the b ...
Close Knit Community
March 30, 2021
Paige Stampatori, SUBURBAN IDENTITY, Illustration - Single, 2020 Student Awards winner. There is a commonly held misconception about Aran jumpers (you know, those cable knit sweaters that have been in and out of style since the 19th century mo ...
Upcoming Grad Shows
March 29, 2021
Kristi Calderon, IMAGINATION, Photography - Single, 2019 Student Awards winner. Like most everything these days, the traditional end-of-year grad show has had to adapt to the strictures of being socially responsible. Who better to lead the way ...
Where Thunderbirds Fly
March 25, 2021
As a long-time writer, designer and brand strategist operating in a trade which, like many consulting practices, is often hobbled by a glaring gap between the recommendations it makes to clients and the client’s lack of will to execute them, I thin ...
What a Way to Make a Living
March 24, 2021
Bhabna Banerjee, 9 TO 5, Illustration - Series, 2020 Student Awards winner. Sometimes captivity can be calming. In her song “9 to 5” the absolute gift to humanity that is Dolly Parton sings, “ Well, I tumble outta bed and stumble to the ...
Pick a Door, Antimicrobial Door
March 23, 2021
Teck Resources and Vancouver-based agency Will demonstrate the benefit of a shiny surface. We’ve all become hyper aware of surfaces, from countertops to door handles, we’ve wiped, washed and fogged with growing intensity this past year to help ...
Words are Worth a Thousand Pictures
March 22, 2021
One Twenty Three West, Vancouver, BC, YOU'LL GET IT WHEN YOU SEE IT, Out-of-Home - Series, 2020 Advertising Awards winner. Great art can take the words out of your mouth, and untraditional art murals can make it impossible to put them back in. M ...
Bold Defence
March 22, 2021
McMillan uses bold simplicity to help cybersecurity specialists Opora stand out. More often than not we find out about a crime long after it has occurred. We come home to our delivery package missing, we unlock our cars only to find glass on the s ...
Out of the Dark Age of Electric
March 19, 2021
CAA knows no one really understands electric vehicles. There is a tremendously ludicrous joke that could only exist in the Internet age that has a customer asking a car salesperson “cargo space?” to which the salesperson replies “no, car go ...
Art is a Light and it Never Goes Out
March 19, 2021
Anika Niva, Alances Vargas, Alexa Forberg, Jackie Lando, Matthew Castronova, Rebecca Moran, Zach Har, CO-, Digital Content, 2020 Student Awards winner. Art is often portrayed as the act of singular, suffering genius. Part Byronic hero and par ...
Obstructed Brews
March 17, 2021
lg2, TALL PEOPLE, Experimental/Artistic - Single and Experiential/Event - Single, 2020 Advertising Awards winner. lg2 and Farnham Brewery make the best out of a bad view. As the weather begins to soften and give way to longer and warmer days ...
Public Safety Canada Aims to Expose Realities of Human Trafficking
March 16, 2021
New national campaign seeks to highlight the realities and prevalence of human trafficking in Canada. In this deeply affecting new campaign, Public Safety Canada strives to open the eyes of many Canadians and expose the realities of human traffickin ...
Max Lols
March 16, 2021
Latest LOTTO MAX campaign from FCB canada urges Canadians to dream as big as humanly possible. We all need a little coaching sometimes, whether it is from the screen of our Wifi enabled treadmill or from a sagacious scribe in the latest betterment ...
Idle Handcraft
March 15, 2021
Alireza Akbari Lor, ABSOLUTE, Photography - Series, 2020 Student Awards winner. 2020 Student Awards winning photography series captures the disappearing world of handcrafting. Ursula Franklin noted in her groundbreaking work The Real World of ...
ANNOUNCING THE 2021 PHOTOGRAPHY AND ILLUSTRATION AWARDS WINNERS
March 12, 2021
Al Quintero Photography, THE CHAMP IS HERE, Sports Photography - Single, 2019 Photography Awards winner. 2020 was extraordinary and the work entered in the 2021 Photography and Illustration Awards was as well. Every year we are absolutely blow ...
How to Get Exposed
March 11, 2021
Madison Rogers, Mary Utley, PONDEROSA, Advertising - Series, 2019 Students Award winner. Tricks for entering your Student Awards work. At Applied Arts, we’re all about transparency. While we can’t guarantee a win, we want to give you the ...
We’re Board
March 10, 2021
Charmaine Cheng, ROSEDIVE, Entire Design Program, 2019 Student Awards winner. Follow us for award-winning pins that provide endless inspiration. If you are looking for the perfect virtual mood board or trying to keep on top of trends in advert ...
Crawling to the Finish Line
March 9, 2021
Vibeke Silverthorne, CROW AND BEAR SENSORY PATH, Young Blood Design-Complete - Single, 2020 Design Awards winner. The deadline to submit your work to the Design Awards is today. 2020 Young Blood Design Awards winner Vibeke Silverthorne’s Crow ...
The Notes You Don’t Design
March 9, 2021
Baillat Studio, MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL 2019, Entire Promotional Design Program, 2020 Design Awards winner. Baillat Studio’s 2020 Design Award-winning promotional program is music to the eyes. For those of us lucky to have had a r ...
It’s Screen Time
March 8, 2021
Delphine Meier, ECRAN, NOS ENFANTS SONT-ILS EN DANGER?, Young Blood Craft - Single, 2020 Design Awards winner. The Design Awards deadline has been extended to March 9, 2021, aka tomorrow! No need to keep refreshing your screen to see if your e ...
Design Awards Deadline Extended
March 5, 2021
DentsuBos, ALL-TERRAIN ENVELOPE, Brochure-Single-Page/Folder - Single, 2020 Design Awards winner. We get it. The creative process is a winding road and life throws road bumps along the way. In their 2020 Design Awards winning entry, DentsuBo ...
Hologramophone
March 5, 2021
Baillat Studio, HOLOGRAMME VINYL SLEEVE, Packaging-Retail Applications -Single, 2020 Design Awards winner. Studio Baillat’s 2020 Design Award-Winning Packaging-Retail Applications Entry Shines. You’ve likely seen the recent trend of turn ...
Guiding Light
March 4, 2021
Central Station takes Humber River Hospital’s tagline as a beacon for their rebrand. After the past year, hospitals can be seen as intimidating and uninviting places. Humber River Hospital is just the opposite: a modern hospital with a focus on ...
All the Rest Have Thirty-One
March 4, 2021
Leo Burnett, Toronto, JAMES READY CAP CALENDAR, Calendar - Single, 2011 Design Awards winner. Be it flipping a page, crossing off a day, or popping a bottle cap, calendars are a medium ripe for design ingenuity. Design Army, CRANES CALEND ...
Song Craft
March 3, 2021
Zulu Alpha Kilo, BIG IN JAPAN, Craft Illustration - Series, 2020 Design Awards winner. Toronto-based agency Zulu Alpha Kilo help rock ‘n’ roll-inspired craft brewery SingleCut make it in the land of the rising sun. In their 1984 hit, Germa ...
Zulu Alpha Kilo Hires Brian Murray as ECD
March 3, 2021
Cundari, BMW M5 LAUNCH, Integrated Campaign, 2013 Advertising Awards winner. Zulu Alpha Kilo’s new Executive Creative Director, Brian Murray, has held senior roles at Ogilvy, Doug & Partners and Cundari. It was recently announced that Br ...
Typing the Alien
March 2, 2021
DAEKI & JUN Studio, DEFAMILIARIZING HANGEUL: TYPE RES FAMILY, Typography-Motion Application-Series, 2020 Design Awards winner. Alphabets are the building blocks of language, and like any foundation, they shift and change with time. In his 196 ...
Symphonic Screens
March 1, 2021
Last year, holiday traditions took a backseat to public health, but FCB found an inventive way to ensure one party played on. The end-of-year holiday party is a way for companies to celebrate the year that was and the people that made it possible: t ...
Big Top, Small Island
February 26, 2021
Simon Roy, FESTIVAL DE CIRQUE DES ÎLES, Community Design-Series, 2020 Design Awards winner. Montreal-based Simon Roy designed an identity and campaign for the inaugural Festival de Cirque des Îles, which seeks to bring the greatest show to a s ...
Cambie Village Gets Redeco'd
February 26, 2021
Vancouver-based creative agency Pendo was tasked with updating the brand identity of one of Vancouver’s most desirable neighbourhoods, Cambie Village, and the results are striking. Neighbourhoods act as a nexus for more than just city streets. T ...
Charging Forward
February 25, 2021
My last column critiqued the uncomfortable irony of automotive advertising’s tired habit of showing off its products against the backdrop of the great outdoors, even as their emissions work to make the outdoors a more and more hostile envir ...
Volkswagen's Sustainable Mobility
February 24, 2021
To promote its all-electric SUV, Volkswagen launched an automotive website unlike any other with the help of Taxi. Did you know that the internet has a carbon footprint and accounts for ~4% of global CO2 emissions? By using no images (!?%!?), the b ...
Design Hack
February 23, 2021
Strategy's Agency of the Year in 2020, Rethink, Demonstrates the Power of Digital Design The thought of being digitally hacked, ambushed or hijacked typically fills one with ones and zeroes full of dread, but since the early 90s “hacktivitsts” ...
FCB and Drug Free Kids Canada helps parents talk about cannabis with their teens
February 23, 2021
Talking to teens can be a challenge. Factor in a worldwide pandemic that has seen cannabis use in Canada “almost doubled,” and that challenging conversation can seem impossible. That’s where FCB and Drug Free Kids Canada’s new campaign co ...
Student Awards Judges 2021
February 22, 2021
Our 2021 Student Awards Judges have built some incredible careers, and an Applied Arts Student Award is an excellent foundation to start building yours. Regardless of what stage in their career our 2021 Student Awards Judges are at, one thing they a ...
Discovery+ UX
February 19, 2021
Bit of A dream job this one. Agency SCS worked alongside the creative team at Discovery to prepare the user experience design on their soon-to-launch Discovery+ platform, featuring over 1,000 show titles. SCS supported the internal Discovery tea ...
Two Weeks to Midnight
February 18, 2021
Leo Burnett, HUMAN CLOCK. Poster – Series, 2020 Design Awards winner. Time has felt pretty weird this past year, our internal clocks (already faulty at the best of times) are running a little behind, so we’re here with a friendly reminder th ...
Royal Roads University
February 10, 2021
Vancouver agency Will takes Royal Roads University In a new direction. Royal Roads University offers a different kind of learning experience - one where full-time students, professionals and lifelong learners can transform their education without ...
Knowvid
January 28, 2021
Newfoundland Agency Ray takes a CHEEKY approach to Covid messaging. Though numbers in Newfoundland are small compared to the rest of Canada, COVID could worsen unless young adults don't start to take it more seriously. Commissioned by the Governm ...
Climate Change versus Automobile Advertising
January 25, 2021
The most iconic consumer product of the 20th century is the automobile. In 1900, there were about 4,000 of them in the world. Now it is estimated that there are over 600 million. Based on EPA stats, a typical vehicle releases about 4.6 tons ...
Full Punch Redefines Equine Branding
January 21, 2021
Vancouver agency Full Punch has turned eating like a horse into a positive. American equine food producer Stable Feed chose Vancouver-based Full Punch to handle the creative duties of developing its new brand and packaging. Most equine foo ...
Design Awards Judges 2021
January 14, 2021
We have some knockout creative heavyweights ready, willing and able to select the 2021 Design Awards winners this spring. Instead of just posting their names and titles, we thought we'd share a little background on our judges so you can get to know ...
A Tangible Contest
January 13, 2021
Vancouver's Tangible Interaction creates show-stopping interactive technology and art pieces. They also have a new 3000 square feet studio called Tangible Studio that's available for creatives of all disciplines to rent. To launch the space, they ...
Meet the 2021 Photography & Illustration Judges
January 5, 2021
get to know our 2021 Photography & Illustration jury. It's a great group who are more than up to the challenge of identifying stellar work. To find out what makes them tick (and so you could get to know them better), we asked a series of questio ...
Will Novosedlik reflects on the year we'll never forget
January 4, 2021
Most years end. This one will still be going until the plague stops. Covid has destroyed time by making every day the same. What year it is is almost beside the point. Still, I feel a look back is in order. So here are the 9 things I will most rememb ...
Just-in-time Holiday Cheer from Saatchi & Saatchi LA
December 22, 2020
Shravan Hegde is an Associate Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi in Los Angeles, California Just in time for a holiday season we're sure to remember for its challenges, Advertising Awards judge Shraven Hegde reminisces on a blockbuster ...
lg2 Montreal gives New Look a new look
December 21, 2020
Geneviève Langlois is a Creative Director at lg2 in Montreal When we gave our recent Advertising Awards jury the opportunity to share their own favourite projects for 2020, Geneviève chose one that, while appearing simple at first glance (no pu ...
Celebrating the Advertising Award winners of 2020
December 17, 2020
We are excited to unveil this year's winning advertising work – there are more than 230 winning entries across 74 categories, including new categories like COVID Response, Corporate Responsibility, Brand Activation and Ideation. [D]espite a real ...
Daughter Creative changes the weather on Calgary's health
December 17, 2020
Stephanie Kochorek is Co-Founder and Creative Director of Daughter, in Calgary, Alberta Advertising Awards judge Stephanie Kochorek's fave project for 2020 is right on topic. Health is the headline of the year, and will likely be for a 2021, an ...
McGarrah Jessee gives back some love for 2020
December 16, 2020
Kevin Dunleavy is a Creative Director at McGarrah Jessee in Austin, Texas We asked our Advertising Awards jurors for feedback after completing their task a few weeks ago. Firstly, on the awards entries themselves. Secondly, to share their o ...
Bleublancrouge and Desjardins team up for a Solo
December 15, 2020
Julie Markle is Co-Executive Creative Director at Bleublancrouge's newest office in Toronto When COVID hit, as we all suffered through that first stage of lockdown, Desjardins didn’t just want to talk about “being there” for those hardest ...
How RPA LA got out the vote on Nov 3rd
December 10, 2020
Canadian Krystle Mullin is working at RPA in Los Angeles, California, as VP, Creative Director After hours pouring over our Advertising Awards entries, we invited jurors to share their own work faves for 2020 – the year that galvanized us al ...
Lost at Sea
December 3, 2020
What Gericault, Michelangelo and Julian Barnes can teach us about the tone-deafness of Virgin Voyages’ current social campaign. In 1819, Théodore Gericault made the above painting, The Raft of the Medusa, long hailed by art historians as the bo ...
David Findlay's new Film Air
November 24, 2020
David Findlay's work focuses on exploring human behaviour. His new film Air examines how humans still connect in our new Covid world. Findlay is known for his ability to straddle the line between fiction and documentary through an empathetic len ...
The 2020 Applied Arts Advertising Awards
November 13, 2020
Thank you to everyone who entered the 2020 Advertising Awards. Your hard work hasn't gone unnoticed. Email notifications were sent out on November 11. Congratulations to our newest Applied Arts Awards winners! Today we are celebrating all work su ...
Creative Futures Speaker Sessions Nov 9-20
November 5, 2020
Applied Arts' Creative Futures helps students considering a career in animation, creative advertising, graphic design, interactive design, illustration, or photography choose the right school. An inspiring combination of advice, industry insight, t ...
Mooren (Mo) Bofill
October 29, 2020
Mo will work alongside Jeff Harrison (former colleagues at Zulu Alpha Kilo) to head One Twenty Three West’s (123w) design team and get their new office up and running. Mo spent the last five years at john st. leading the design team and building a ...
The Brand that Would Not Die
October 22, 2020
Left, Bauhaus Dessau, by Walter Gropius1926. Right, EU headquarters, Brussels, Samyn and Partners, 2016 As an institution, it was officially shut down by the Nazis in 1933, after only 14 short years. But as the mythical heart of modernism, the Bau ...
Discovering the Creative Potential of Pinterest
October 1, 2020
Part of the Creative Exchange series: Inspired work leads to inspired ideas Is there anything more energizing than the fuzzy front end of a creative project? It’s that part of the process when no matter how tight the brief, anything seems pos ...
Stranger Things' Craig Henighan
September 24, 2020
Canadians were the talk of the town at the Emmys Sunday night. One Canadian that you may not have heard of is Sheridan College’s Craig Henighan. He and his team of Sound Editors, Music Editors and Foley Artists, shared the Emmy for Outstanding Soun ...
The Last Agency Standing
September 24, 2020
In my Linkedin feed, I recently saw a post from Andy Main, Global CEO of WPP agency Ogilvy. The post shared imagery from Ogilvy’s latest campaign for Greenpeace, #cleanairnow. It is stunningly well crafted, visually arresting and disarmingly clear ...
The Conscious Creative
August 28, 2020
Design firms and ad agencies have, with very few exceptions, historically cleaved to what Bruce Mau once called a ‘karaoke existence, always singing someone else’s song, and never saying what (they) think should be said.” It’s a model of m ...
Applied Arts Student Awards Winners 2020
August 27, 2020
Image details: Various winners from the 2020 Applied Arts Student Awards. Thank you to all entrants who took the time to enter their school or personal projects. We are SO excited to announce this year's winners. A big round of applause goes out to ...
Stevie
August 19, 2020
NEW SUNEEVA DIRECTOR ANTE KOVAC'S SHORT FILM STEVIE TAKES US INTO THE MIND OF A SUBURBAN TEENAGE GIRL. With the help of co-creator and DP Stuart Campbell and a pulsing electro-disco LCD Soundsystem soundtrack, Kovac has created the ultimate ...
Love Lives in Diversity
July 24, 2020
Jean Tran is the co-founder of award-winning design agency Monarque. Élysée Lang is a freelance photographer specialising in beauty and wedding photography. JÉ (as in “Je t’aime”) is an amalgam of the couple’s initials and a reflection o ...
For the Good of All
July 21, 2020
The Coronavirus has certainly knocked industry off its feet. Once fluid revenue streams have slowed to a trickle. Businesses struggle with how to reopen. And wherever they have, we’re seeing a vigorous resurgence of cases. This is going to be a ve ...
ABC Stay Home with Me
July 13, 2020
CHildren's book ABC Stay Home with Me was designed for parents to read to their kids during the global pandemic. If that sounds daunting - it's not. The delightful ABC Stay Home with Me is proof that you can find love, laughter and adventure wh ...
SHOULDERS TO STAND ON
July 8, 2020
It was Winston Churchill who said, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” Churchill was of course referring to the repetition of history’s mistakes, not its better moments. Wonder what he would have said about advert ...
UNDER PRESSURE
July 2, 2020
As we look at illustration and photography through the buyer’s lens, we are talking about a client whose world overlaps the vendor’s to a far greater degree than it does the world of the end client. The direct client in this case is an art direct ...
Georges Haroutiun on the need to celebrate great Canadian work
June 30, 2020
We've just launched our annual Advertising Awards call for entry, and given the debate surrounding this decision, and the changes we've made to this year's awards, as awards manager, I thought I would pre-empt some of the inevitable questions fro ...
Missing the Movies
June 25, 2020
After three months of temporary closures, Cineplex is reopening its theatres in all markets where it is permitted by local governments. To build anticipation and remind movie-lovers of the power of shared experiences and storytelling (while still ob ...
Black Lives and White Lies
June 18, 2020
CREDIT: Banksy I had a difficult conversation the other day with a hardcore American alt-right winger. He is a former high school classmate who has reappeared in my life as the result of a gathering of our class in preparation for our high school’ ...
2020 Design Awards Winners Gallery
June 15, 2020
Image: The Match Paddle/Rethink Canada Category: Craft printing/bindery/finishing - single Meet the 2020 Design Award Winners Take a deep-dive into the cool creativity of our 2020 Design Winners Gallery. This year’s winners were selected by ou ...
HOORAY FOR HEADLINES
June 15, 2020
In this time of tight deadlines and even tighter budgets, making ads is hard. And it’s getting harder by the minute. So I’d like to propose something that may seem a little old fashioned. Quaint, even. It’s called… the headline. Jane Murra ...
Portraits of Courage
June 9, 2020
Creative responses to the strain of Covid-19 abound. Stephanie Kretzschmer turned her personal experience into a photographic tribute of our frontline superheroes. In early April, at the advice of my doctor, I made a trip to the Humber Ri ...
Ready at bat with Student Awards Judge Paulo Salomao
May 27, 2020
Paulo Salomao is an alumni of Toronto Film School, Humber College & OCADU, and currently Partner, Executive Creative Director at King Ursa in Toronto And in just a few days Paulo will also be focussed on judging our Student Awards (deadline t ...
IN HOUSE OR OUT HOUSE?
May 21, 2020
I kicked a hornet’s nest. I blame it on P&G’s Global CMO Marc Pritchard. I’ve long been a fan, he’s a big thinker. Pritchard was one of the earliest marketers to embrace the power of purpose. In my books, marketing pearls typically drop f ...
88 Cheers to Student Awards Judge Morgan Curley
May 15, 2020
Alberta University of the Arts alumni Morgan Curley is Partner & Designer at BAMFF STUDIO, which she co-founded with Mark rimmer in Calgary, Alberta. Possibly the most enthusiastic – and definitely one of the youngest, Student Awards (dea ...
It Takes A Village
May 12, 2020
Applied Arts sent out a request for your "life during Covid-19" stories. Here is the first in our series. Chairman Ting's Carson Ting has created a limited edition print that showcases the nightly 7 pm ovation for Vancouver's healthcare heroes. I ...
The Many Hats of Student Awards Judge Sara Morley
May 11, 2020
Concordia University almuni Sara Morley is Creative Director at her studio Design Postimage in Montreal In just a few more weeks, Sara will be judging our 2020 Student Awards (deadline May 22). Her BFA and company name should give you a clue as ...
Student Awards Judge Natalie Armata Hits the Sweet Spot
May 8, 2020
OCAD University alumni Natalie Armata is Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of Giants & Gentlemen in Toronto Natalie is getting set to judge our 2020 Student Awards (deadline May 22 - only 2 weeks away!), and she's a perfect choice fo ...
EVERYBODY IS NOT CREATIVE
May 6, 2020
I have a confession to make. At one time I actually stood in front of people and said, “everyone is creative.” It seems bizarre to me now. And I can’t believe those words actually came out of my mouth because I don’t believe a word of it. I r ...
On the GO! with Student Awards Judge Matthew Clark
May 5, 2020
UBC alumni Matthew Clark is Founder & Creative Director of Subplot Design Inc. in Vancouver And next month, Matthew will be one of 16 judges reviewing our 2020 Student Awards entries – deadline May 22. He's also currently on Applied Arts ad ...
Making Space for Time
May 2, 2020
In his inaugural 1961 speech, John F. Kennedy told Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” In 2020, during our Covid-19 lockdown, we might “ask not what we will do with our time, ask what ...
All Eyes on Student Awards Judge Michael Zavacky
May 1, 2020
Concordia University alumni Michael Zavacky is Art Director at McMillan, the ad agency he helped found in Ottawa, Ontario. He's also the award-winning illustrator known as Zeke. Having a background spanning image-making, advertising and design ...
Student Awards Judge Ellen Bruss Re: Born
April 24, 2020
Michigan State University alumni Ellen Bruss is Creative Director at Ellen Bruss Design in Denver, Colorado. Ellen will soon be judging our 2020 Student Awards (deadline May 22). One of the more seasoned designers on the jury, Ellen recently t ...
Student Awards Judge David Walker's Toast to Craft
April 24, 2020
School of Visual Concepts alumni David Walker is Partner & Creative Director at Saint Bernadine Mission Communications in Vancouver David is also gearing up to judge our 2020 Student Awards (deadline May 22 – just 4 weeks away). He's one ...
Supporting The New Reality of Working from Home
April 23, 2020
The unprecedented global health crisis is changing the way we work at truly astounding speeds. Suddenly, whether by choice or necessity, many of us find ourselves negotiating the new reality of remote work. As a technology supplier to the creative co ...
THE CASE FOR STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
April 22, 2020
You may have noticed that we are experiencing historic rates of change. Innovation, the process of developing new ideas, products and methods is running at an ever-increasing pace. This rapid change has given rise to a feeling of impending but unpred ...
Student Awards Judge Caroline Friesen is Hauling in Awards
April 20, 2020
Humber College alumni Caroline Friesen is also an Associate Creative Director at creative powerhouse john st. in Toronto And, she's mere weeks away from judging our 2020 Student Awards - only 5 weeks to deadline now. One of our most-recentl ...
COVID 19: A Crucible of Creativity
April 16, 2020
Lead image: The Other Guys There’s a scene in the 1984 film Starman in which an alien visitor, played by Jeff Bridges, makes an uplifting observation about humans: “You are at your best when things are at their worst.” Human history has ...
A sneak peek at the 2020 Photography & Illustration Winners
April 16, 2020
Image credit: Todd Antony's Cholitas Escaladoras - 2020 Applied Arts Photography Awards winner. Introducing the 2020 Applied Arts Photography & Illustration Awards Winners Congratulations and a big thank you to all of the entrants who took t ...
Ryan Crouchman's Creative Conundrum
April 14, 2020
Ryan Crouchman is VP, Creative Director, Design at lg2 in Toronto, ON Ryan’s work spans branding, print, editorial and interactive design. He has a Master's in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins, London, UK, and a Bachelor of Fi ...
BEYOND DESIGN THINKING
April 8, 2020
The purpose of design education is to prepare designers to engage with the world around them and make productive changes to what they find. Well-rounded design education trains designers to learn how explore the world and connect this new knowledge t ...
Kirk Clyne's 'So Smart' Solution
April 7, 2020
Kirk Clyne is Chief Creative Officer at Art & Science in Toronto, ON Kirk is also the co-founder of Art & Science, a digital experience design agency based in Toronto. With over 25 years of experience in digital media, a burgeoning art ...
Trump’s Very Own Personal Shepard Fairey
April 2, 2020
Hard to have missed being exposed to the imagery of American artist Shepard Fairey in the last 12 years. Famous for the ‘HOPE’ poster designed to support Barack Obama during the 2008 US presidential election, Fairey has since taken on the role o ...
Man Wai Wong: Success with the truth and nothing but
April 2, 2020
Man Wai Wong is Design Director at Leo Burnett in Toronto, ON Man Wai graduated from York University, Toronto and Bauhaus University in Germany. At Leo Burnett Toronto for the past 8 years, she’s risen the ranks from Designer to Design Dir ...
Don Chisholm stays ahead of the innovation curve
March 27, 2020
Don Chisholm is Co-Founder and Innovation Director of Dossier Creative in Vancouver, BC Dossier is a leading brand and innovation firm. Don started his career working with a team of multi-disciplinary designers and architects on Expo ’86 ...
MEANING VS MAKING
March 25, 2020
Design is ubiquitous in everyday life but learning to become a designer is not well understood. The reasons for this will be explored in this short piece, part of a larger project which explores the impact of Design Education on learning, creativity ...
Kyosuke Nishida lets the Tiger out
March 23, 2020
Kyosuke Nishida is Associate Creative Director at Bruce Mau Design in Toronto, ON Since joining the BMD studio in 2012, he has worked on brand identities, communications, and digital executions for both commercial and non-profit organizations. ...
Barry Quinn: Mover and quake-maker
March 17, 2020
Barry Quinn is Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Quake Creative & Design in Toronto, ON After the success of co-founding Juniper Park and his most recent role as Chief Design Officer NA at DDB (Chicago), Barry decided to launch his own ...
Don't Kick the Can
March 11, 2020
As a metaphor, the tin can has always had negative connotations. In your grandparents' day, it was something they kicked around in the street in lieu of a soccer ball. Kick the can they called it. When your parents were kids, they would take two can ...
Yasemin Emory: Truly, One of A Kind
March 9, 2020
Yasemin Emory is Partner & Creative Director at Whitman Emorson in Toronto, ON Yasemin Emory is the co-founder of Whitman Emorson [WE], a design studio in Toronto, where she directs the design team across all projects, from print to web, ...
Artscape Daniels Launchpad
March 5, 2020
Artscape Daniels Launchpad is Toronto's new entrepreneurship hub empowering creatives to thrive. With a double mandate of helping creative types thrive artistically and financially and building an inclusive and vibrant artistic community, Artscape ...
Richard Bélanger: Brand identity personified
March 2, 2020
Richard Bélanger is Creative Director at Cossette in Montreal, QC Richard brings a unique sense of style and unerring aesthetic design ethics to each project. For the last 20 years, he’s been coming up with ideas that make a statement – ...
BUSTING THE 20TH CENTURY
February 29, 2020
The great Lewis Lapham, former editor of HARPER’S magazine, said the above in response to the question, “How would you reinvent America?”. His words reference two undeniable truths: that students are the future, and that they would be well serv ...
Derwyn Goodall: A Rigorous Attention to Craft
February 24, 2020
Derwyn Goodall is Creative Director / Principal at Goodall Integrated Design in Toronto, ON Derwyn Goodall, RGD, is an award-winning creative director, art director and graphic designer with more than 30 years of design and branding experience. ...
Design Goes Corporate
February 21, 2020
Accenture’s Canadian Innovation Hub looks like a hip design agency. The environment is bright and open. Areas that invite collaboration include a long bar table with stools and clusters of window-facing orange couches and swivel chairs. Tucked-away ...
Hans Thiessen: Hitting it home south of the border
February 18, 2020
Hans Thiessen is Partner and Creative Director of Design at Rethink in Vancouver, BC Rethink is Canada's largest national independent creative agency, with offices in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Over the last decade, Hans has worked with ...
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
February 13, 2020
The Mac-driven revolution in desktop publishing was less of a catalyst and more of a cataclysm that sent the industry reeling to respond to laypeople who could produce communications with the right software if not the right skill set. Inspired ...
Catherine Gravel: Boutique is Beautiful
February 12, 2020
Catherine Gravel is Founder / Creative Director of Quatre par Quatre in Montreal, QC Catherine began her career as an art director, with a particular interest in editorial design, and regularly contributed to – and redesigned – many leading ...
Dylan Staniul: it's all about the exploration
February 7, 2020
Dylan Staniul is Principal & Creative Director at Burnkit in Vancouver, BC Burnkit is a design agency specializing in brand and digital. Dylan invites clients to see behind the curtain and encourages key stakeholders to engage with brand and ...
THE TURN OF THE DIGITAL SCREW
February 6, 2020
Curated brand identity sites regularly post new work while endless Instagram feeds showcase examples of branding from around the world giving the impression that everyone is busy and doing great work. But how many of us have email inboxes full of inq ...
Frédéric Tremblay: re-imaging an historical icon
January 31, 2020
Frédéric Tremblay is a Creative Director at lg2 in Montreal, QC Frédéric started his career as an illustrator and gradually transitioned into advertising. Over the past 15 years, he has worked on the repositioning of several major Quebec br ...
Charles HIvely: Who's to Judge?
January 28, 2020
Charles Hively is Design Director at Artisanal Media LLC, Brooklyn, NY He's also Principal of HivelyDesigns in Brooklyn, NY. Charles is an award-winning creative director, art director, ad agency founder, graphic designer, sometime copywriter, ...
Design Revised
January 24, 2020
“Changes?”, asks James Wilson, founder and principal of Overdrive, a firm which has surfed the leading edge of graphic design practice for the last 30 years. “Hmm. I need to think about that.” I’ve just asked James what he feels are the big ...
LASN LIGHT
January 23, 2020
Brand iconoclast Kalle Lasn, founder of the radical Adbustersmagazine and master of the spoof ad described his signature image-making technique as a "rerouting [of] spectacular images, environments, ambiences and events to reverse or subvert their me ...
We're in the Golden Age of the Photo Collage
January 9, 2020
In 2012, John Stezaker won one of the most prestigious awards for any photographer--the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize--and according to reports, the judges had agreed on their winner with "great unanimity.” But that year was differe ...
From Bauhaus to My House
January 6, 2020
Now that 2020's here, let's talk about 2019’s most interesting, if not most well known, centenary: that of the founding of The Bauhaus, mother of all design schools. I live in a neighbourhood that was built in the late 1920s. The houses were ...
TAKING STOCK
January 4, 2020
Stock photography has its roots in the 1980’s when stock libraries (historically an alternate source for images to staff photographers for newspapers and magazines), became stock agencies and viable commercial models for curators and photographers. ...
15 MILLION CANS of ART
January 4, 2020
Kind of like how Picasso spent a lifetime learning to draw like a child, Collective Arts co-founders Bob Russell and Matt Johnson found the way to their disruptive label by spending years perfecting the big beer brand formula - and then turning away ...
Glenda Rissman is loving the art of the challenge
December 23, 2019
Glenda Rissman is Co-founding Partner of q30 design inc. in Toronto Glenda prides herself on having a knack for spotting that certain something that makes a brand unique and sets her clients apart from the pack. Since co-founding q30 design over 2 ...
Zachary Bautista: Rising star at Rethink
December 20, 2019
Zachary Bautista is an Art Director at Rethink in Toronto An OCAD University alumni, prior to Rethink Zachary was at lg2 working on insurance brands. Prior to that he was at Grip working on car brands. Prior to that he was a janitor workin ...
Instagram: IS IT OVER YET?
December 19, 2019
Back in 2012, when Lauren Bath quit her full-time job to work as an Instagrammer, the idea was laughable. She didn’t have a background in social media management or photography—her day job was a chef. She didn’t even own a camera. Any work that ...
Re-brand by Vanderbrand
December 18, 2019
Julie Vander Herberg is Founder & Creative Director of Vanderbrand in Toronto Julie is an award-winning creative director specialized in branding, digital strategy, and lifestyle marketing. Julie founded Vanderbrand in 2008 after working in ...
A BBDO NYC rock star named Pebble
December 16, 2019
Pebble is a Vice President, Creative Director at BBDO in New York Only the brightest stars can get away with using only one name. Pebble has 14 years of agency experience. She was the global creative director on BBDO’s Johnson's Baby cons ...
Jeremy Gladstone: Re-envisioning Toronto's urban landscape
December 13, 2019
Jeremy Gladstone is Principal & Creative Director of Gladstone Media Inc. in Toronto Gladstone Media is an award-winning strategic marketing, advertising, and multimedia production company in Toronto, with a focus on lifestyle brands and re ...
Leo's Natee pays homage to his big break
December 11, 2019
Natee Likitsuwankool is now a Senior Art Director at Leo Burnett in Toronto Natee's also worked at Y&R, Havas & JWT, but he started his career in Canada as an intern at Rethink Vancouver. As we launch our 2020 Student Awards Call for En ...
COUPLE D’IDÉES: Paper vision
December 8, 2019
Diane Parenteau is Designer and Co-founder of COUPLE D’IDÉES in Montreal Diane studied graphic design in Montreal before working in various fields, including book publishing, for more than 20 years. Passionate about everything paper, and ...
The Black and White of the White Room
December 5, 2019
Neil Rodman is Co-Founder & Creative Director of The White Room Inc. Branding & Art Direction in Toronto Neil is a graduate of Sheridan College in Oakville, Canada. He has been a designer for the past 19 years. Over the course of his c ...
Keeping Up with Moore’s Law
December 4, 2019
The digitization of illustration and photography has transformed these practices into a multichannel narrative that is as much about how the work gets done as it is about its final form and destination. by Will Novosedlik, Photo: Angela Gzowski In ...
Jenny Smith: no small fish
November 26, 2019
Jenny Smith is President & Executive CD at Ray in St. John's, Nfld. With over 20 years in the advertising business, Jenny is no stranger to creating internationally recognized, award-winning work. She has judged every national and regi ...
Lisa Lebedovich: where there's a will
November 21, 2019
Lisa Lebedovich, creative director at Will in Vancouver "Some of my favourite projects are ones where I’ve been told it’s not possible, and then we go ahead and make it possible." With over 18 years of advertising experience, Lisa has creat ...
Zuckerberg’s New Clothes
November 12, 2019
It’s been over a week since facebook CMO Antonio Lucio posted an announcement entitled ‘Introducing Our New Company Brand”. I have to admit when I read that headline about 1.5% of me thought maybe the brand team was actually grappling with som ...
Grip's Bernice Lo
November 5, 2019
Bernice Lo is an Associate Creative Director / Art Director at Grip Limited in Toronto. Better known as “Bee” by her peers, Bernice recently joined Grip. Previously, she helped lead the Rogers brand at Publicis. With over 11 years of experie ...
Cossette's Carlos Moreno
October 2, 2019
Carlos Moreno is the Global Chief Creative Officer at Cossette in Toronto. Carlos is one of the most successful creative directors in Canada. Under his leadership, Cossette was named Canadian "Agency of the Year" by Strategy Magazine in 2016, ...
Will Novosedlik on Clearing a Path to the Future
September 28, 2019
Standing on the subway platform the other day, I came across this creative for an organization called Pathways to Education: Immediately struck by the logic of the message – linking lifelong poverty and burden ...
Bensimon Byrne's Joseph Bonnici
September 28, 2019
Joseph Bonnici, partner and executive creative director at Bensimon Byrne in Toronto. For the past 7 years, Joseph has helped lead Bensimon Byrne, overseeing its growth into one of the largest independent agencies in Canada. In 2018, Bensimon By ...
TAXI's Nikki Jobson
September 26, 2019
Nikki Jobson is the ASSOCIATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR at TAXI in Vancouver Nikki hails from the UK where she spent many years working at independent shops and multinationals whilst drinking too much tea. Fourteen years ago, she moved to Canada, ...
Dave Federico
September 23, 2019
Dave Federico is chief creative officer at Toronto's No Fixed Address Dave started his career 20 years ago at legendary Canadian agency Roche Macaulay and Partners. Since then he's worked at some of the most highly regarded creative agencies i ...
Addison's Kevin Barclay
September 19, 2019
Kevin Barclay is the creative director at Addison in New York, NY. After accepting Applied Arts' invitation to judge, award-winning CD Kevin Barclay – originally from Winnipeg – confessed the following: I bought the very first issue of App ...
Rethink's Joel Holtby
September 16, 2019
Joel Holtby is the partner & creative director at Rethink in Toronto. Over his career, Joel Holtby has been called one of Canada’s top advertising talents and has been a regular feature in Strategy’s top creative report card. He has b ...
Canadian Down Syndrome Answers Tough Questions
September 13, 2019
Jeff Hilts is the Chief Creative Officer at FCB Canada in Toronto An award-winning Chief Creative Officer, Jeff’s passion for creative thinking along with an unwavering commitment to his craft has helped shape his multi-disciplinary career. Jeff ...
Union's Rica Eckersley
September 6, 2019
Rica Eckersley is the creative director at Toronto's UNION. Rica has spent over 15 years helping brands find their unique voice and shaping their narratives across multiple platforms. Her keen sense of insight and love of storytelling have helpe ...
Executive Creative Director Rob Sweetman
September 4, 2019
Rob Sweetman is a founder and executive creative director at One Twenty Three West in Vancouver. Rob helped launch the agency in a garage with partners Bryan Collins, Jeff Harrison and Scot Keith to embrace the current realities of our industry. ...
Anomaly's Sebastian Lyman Rolls With It
August 29, 2019
Sebastian Lyman is the creative director at Anomaly in Berlin. Applied Arts Advertising Awards judge Sebastian is a half Native-American creative director who has worked internationally in Toronto, Los Angeles and Berlin. He started his career in To ...
Starbucks: Breaking Brand Promise, One Store at a Time
August 21, 2019
Back in 1997, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz wrote about his now-iconic brand, “The people who line up for Starbucks aren’t just there for the coffee. It’s the romance of the coffee experience, the feeling of warmth and community people get i ...
A Salute to Burton Kramer, Canada's Pioneer of Modernism.
August 15, 2019
Burton Kramer is a pioneer of Modernism in Canadian Graphic Design. He is best known for his iconic design of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation logo and corporate identity program in 1974 and his work for Expo ’67. From 1967-2001, he w ...
AA Judge Nick Asik on Creative Canadiana and Next Gen Talent
August 8, 2019
AA Judge Nick Asik is the creative director at WAX partnership incorporated in Calgary Nick’s career has spanned North America, working for agencies in Toronto, Calgary, Los Angeles and New York. He’s leant his creativity to brands like Audi, Co ...
All about AA Judge Brent Choi
August 1, 2019
AA Judge Brent Choi, CEO & CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER, DDB Canada Toronto As a ‘creative’ guy, for years Brent hid the fact he had graduated from one of Canada’s most prestigious business schools. And that he used to be an account executive. A ...
Will Novosedlik on Building the Biggest Bible since Gutenberg
July 25, 2019
I once had a colleague who joked about how graphic designers were “on a mission from God” to save the world from bad design. Aside from the Blues Brothers reference, it was a sarcastic reflection on the heroic narrative in which the designer is ...
2019 Student Awards Winners Announcement
July 25, 2019
A big thank you to all the entrants who took the time to submit their best work. It’s an exciting endeavour for our judges to make their way through the incredible offerings from talented students around the world. Thank you, judges, for your ti ...
A Look Back at Theo Dimson
July 18, 2019
Graphic designer Theo Dimson (1930-2012) holds a well-deserved place in Canadian graphic design history. The OCAD grad’s exuberant yet elegant designs won awards and international applause with exhibits in Finland, Poland, Germany, Japan, Switzerl ...
Meet Our Judges: Laura Wills Covers Cycling Apparel + Wine Labels + Luxury Travel
July 17, 2019
AA judge Laura is a multi-award-winning creative director and designer, recognized in top design shows and publications around the world, and featured in a few big, fat coffee table books about wine labels. She’s had the great fortune to work wi ...
AA Judge Greg Oznowich Nesnadny + Schwartz
July 12, 2019
As creative director at Nesnadny + Schwartz, Greg Oznowich guides the company’s founding principle that concept should drive design. He has collaborated with industry leaders on print and digital communication projects for clients like the Clevel ...
What are niche chocolate brands are doing differently?
July 3, 2019
protecting the workers and protecting the earth. I’ve recently become addicted to chocolate. I blame it entirely on work. I always liked chocolate but never made a habit of eating it. It was never on my shopping list. But since taking on some bra ...
Pamela Rounis takes a fresh approach
June 28, 2019
Pamela Rounis is the associate creative director at Rethink Vancouver. After completing a BFA at Emily Carr University in 2006, Pamela studied design and illustration in the IDEA program at Capilano University. Currently, at Rethink, she works wi ...
Applied Arts Judge Margherita Porra on the Virtues of Taking Your Time
June 21, 2019
Known for her unique brand creation, cultural trend clairvoyance and paired down, symbolic design, Margherita launched her design career in fashion, working with top Canadian and US brands. With over 17 years’ experience in consumer goods, her wor ...
Meet Our Judges: Hangar 18 Design Continuum’s Vida Jurcic
June 13, 2019
Our salute to Applied Arts Awards judges continues. Say hello to Vida Jurcic of Vancouver’s Hangar 18 Design Continuum. Vida is a founding partner of Hangar 18 Design Continuum, a Vancouver design firm with a legacy of award-winning strategic d ...
The Design World Needs More Photos of Women by Women
June 12, 2019
In the 1940s and 1950s, Lillian Bassman was one of a small cohort of prominent women in fashion photography, the significance of which was not lost on her female models. “It was sexually a very different thing when they worked with men,” the pho ...
Samsung Wants You to Meet the Workplace of the Future
June 10, 2019
As modern office spaces evolve, technology is transforming the way we work. Samsung Electronics Canada knows that it’s a requirement of modern businesses to offer digital solutions that provide employees with high-quality tools that encourage coll ...
Snack by McMillan Offers Bite Sized Agency Services
June 6, 2019
Snack by McMillan offers an Uberized process for one-off creative agency projects. Introduced today, Snack by McMillan will provide clients interested in quick turnaround projects across the agency spectrum with an alternative to the traditional ag ...
Our Judges: Leo Burnett’s Petra Cuschieri
June 3, 2019
Our salute to Applied Arts Awards judges continues. Say hello to Petra Cuschieri, Design Director of Toronto’s Leo Burnett. Petra is an award-winning designer with a focus on branding, packaging, editorial, digital design and illustration. She h ...
Photographer David DeStefano
May 30, 2019
Montreal based food/lifestyle photographer David DeStefano’s path to photography has had some twists and turns but always had food somewhere in the equation. From his early teens, David DeStefano worked in the Montreal restaurant scene, and once h ...
Our Judges: Pendo’s Peter Ladd
May 24, 2019
Our salute to Applied Arts Awards judges continues. Say hello to Peter Ladd, Creative Director & Co-Founder of Vancouver’s Pendo. Humber College graduate Peter Ladd launched Pendo in 2015. Since then, the company has taken on projects coveri ...
Brutal Postings on International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia
May 17, 2019
Did you know that every 23 seconds, a homophobic or transphobic comment gets posted online? Kudos to Rethink for their work with FondationEmergence on “Brutal Postings”, a social experiment highlighting the role of social media in promoting hom ...
Meet Our Judges: Lime Design Inc.’s Lara Minja
May 16, 2019
Lara Minja of Lime Design Inc. Lara Minja’s love of art, craft, learning, and storytelling has led her to the focused design of exhibition catalogues, scholarly books, magazines, educational materials, and postage stamps. Her work has been widely ...
Eyes on Eye on Design, by Will Novosedlik
May 16, 2019
A new publication from America’s most prestigious design organization both hits and misses the mark. For whatever reasons, publications aimed at the graphic design community are still a lot more interested in what’s fashionable than in what’s ...
In Wade Hudson Portraiture, Subjects Shine
May 10, 2019
Wade Hudson portraiture is sharp and clean; through his understanding and use of light, his raw and seemingly effortless aesthetic allows his subjects to shine. Born and raised in Jamaica and currently living in Toronto, Hudson is a graduate of Hu ...
Meet Our Judges: Locomotive’s Frédéric Marchand
May 2, 2019
Next in our series on Applied Arts Awards judges. Today we’re looking at some recent work from Frédéric Marchand of Montreal’s Locomotive. As President & Creative Director of Locomotive, Frédéric Marchand serves as the “strategic fo ...
Announcing the 2019 Design Awards Winners
April 18, 2019
Winners will have their work and credits published on premium paper in the Summer 2019 issue of Applied Arts. They’ll also appear in our tablet edition, and in our online Winner’s Gallery (coming in June), where their work will live on in perpet ...
Field Trip & Co. Tells an East Side Story
April 17, 2019
When it comes to hospital fundraising, the competition for eyeballs and wallets can be fierce and the market fragmented. There’s no particular reason to elevate the reputation of any hospital above that of its peers, especially in a market like To ...
Meet Our Judges: BangBang’s Simon Laliberté
April 10, 2019
The first in a series in which Applied Arts profiles our Awards judges. Today we’re looking at some recent work from Simon Laliberté, Founder, Designer, Art Director & Screenprinter of Montreal’s BangBang Simon Laliberté’s creative s ...
When Private Equity Meets Brand Equity
April 3, 2019
Or what happens when what can’t be measured doesn’t get managed OR what can’t be measured isn’t accounted for? “Tomayo!” cried my wife. “That’s what they should have called it. Not “Mayochup”. My wife is a speech and language pa ...
Tears to Fear: McMillan Agency Sends Bottled Tears to Prospective Interns
March 20, 2019
Say “Millennials” in conversation and you’re likely to be met with rolling eyes. But like them or not, Millennials are here to stay, and they currently make up the majority of our industry’s juniors, interns and new hires. Determined to com ...
Mitchell Press Illustrates Desert Island Songs
March 18, 2019
It’s a question we’ve all been asked before “what is your desert island song?” From cocktail party chatter to the countless Spotify playlists teaming the web and the BBC’s Desert Island Discs radio program – the question has been discusse ...
COMING SOON! THE 2019 SPRING ISSUE OF APPLIED ARTS MAGAZINE
March 13, 2019
2019 Spring Cover featuring Wayne Hoecherl’s winning work Our Spring 2019 issue beautifully showcases the winners of our 2019 Photography & Illustration Awards. Plus stories on the future of photography and illustration, Instagram’s impact o ...
From Graphics to Beer: The Journey of Martin L’Allier
March 4, 2019
Sour Fruit Beers. Acidula Framboise (left) and Acidula Citron Vanille Mixing work with alcohol is usually a recipe for disaster. But for Martin L’Allier, mixing business with pleasure allowed him to turn his passion into a career. L’Allier has ...
Announcing the 2019 Photography and Illustration Awards Winners.
February 25, 2019
Oliver Staub, ‘Cannabis.’ Advertising Photography, 2108 Photography Awards winner. A big thank you to all the entrants who took the time to submit their best work from the past 12 months. It’s always a challenge for our judges to make the dist ...
Going Viral: A Talk with Libby Oliver
February 21, 2019
Going viral and the attending influx of attention is a digital goal for almost every business. But it doesn’t just happen to celebrities – sometimes it happens to artists. Introducing Libby Oliver, whose project ‘Soft Shells’ went viral afte ...
The storyfire: Learning to Listen
February 14, 2019
Photo by Wenni Zhou for Unsplash What indigenous culture can teach us about storytelling As the editor of a national magazine, you get a lot of article pitches. Most of them are easily dismissed. Some of them are out-and-out PR. I never print that ...
FIVE MINUTES: Annabelle Soucy, Creating through the language of imagery
February 13, 2019
White What happens when you cross a graphic designer and a photographer? Other than a corny joke, you’ll likely get the minimalistic yet expressive work of Annabelle Soucy. A visual thinker, Soucy explains that her craft is almost like a secon ...
2019 Student Awards are Now Open for Entry
January 22, 2019
Kathy Powell, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ninth Letter 15.1 Spring/Summer 2018. Complete Book Design-Campaign, 2018. Applied Arts values the work of all students and aims to help them get the recognition they deserve. Consequently, t ...
2019 Design Awards Announcement
January 18, 2019
Studio Baillat, ELEKTRA 2017 – 18TH International Digital Art Festival. Craft Motion/Animation, 2018. It is with great excitement that we announce the opening of the 2019 Design Awards call for entries! The Applied Arts Awards are the only compet ...
Exciting News For The 2019 Applied Arts Awards Competitions
January 15, 2019
Jen Aurich, Swimmers. Travel Photography – Single. 2017 For nearly 30 years the Applied Arts Awards have helped raise the bar of creative excellence by promoting award-winning artists, both professionals and enthusiasts alike. Entering the Applie ...
Inspiration: Vigg
January 9, 2019
Montreal-based illustrator Vigg has been in the creative game for 20 years. His playful and light-hearted work is mostly divided between children’s books and editorial illustrations. For him, there is no difference in how he approaches illustrati ...
Inspiration: Marcus Beretta
January 8, 2019
Toronto-based photographer Marcus Beretta can break down his creative process into three steps. The first is inspiration, then explanation and finally execution. Or as he says, “This is what I want to do, this is why I want to do it and then actual ...
Inspiration: John Parra
January 7, 2019
If there’s one thing that John Parra wants you to know about creating children’s book illustrations, it is that they “take quite a bit of time and effort,” and that he almost never has contact with the author of the book. “I think it’s fr ...
Inspiration: Cody Greco
January 3, 2019
When you ask Toronto-based photographer Cody Greco how he describes his artistic style, the first word that pops into his head is “minimalistic,” and after looking at his pieces, you could argue that this word perfectly embodies Greco’s style. ...
Inspiration: Ran Zheng
January 2, 2019
In anticipation of our 2019 Photography and Illustration Awards, we have interviewed some of our past winners to help inspire your work and encourage to you enter. These shorter inspiration pieces will appear on site throughout the coming weeks. The ...
Martin Dupuis Creates Fantasized Worlds With Latest Project
December 31, 2018
A few weeks ago we covered a first in Applied Arts history. Martin Dupuis of Montreal-based Les Évadés and his poster series entitled 'Cinema du Parc' were the first to win in three of our Awards programs (Photography and Illustration, Advertising ...
The 2018 Advertising Awards Winners Gallery is Live
December 21, 2018
"Stop Sucking." Rethink. Public Service/Charity-Series. The 2018 Advertising Awards are published in the new 2018 winter issue, which will be hitting mailboxes and our stockists within the next few days. Head over to our Winner’s Gallery to ch ...
Will Delivers a Treat for Your Ears
December 20, 2018
Every year when the holiday season roles around, Vancouver-based agency Will takes it upon themselves to spread happiness to the advertising community, their partners and clients. This year has proved to be the same, except that the medium of deliver ...
A Logo Too Big to Fail
December 18, 2018
So I’m surfing my LinkedIn feed a couple weeks back and I see a post from Toronto-based Method Branding. The news: Bank of America has a new logo. As a former logo designer, and now an armchair logo critic, I wondered if this might be column-wor ...
Advertising Awards Judges Work: BBDO NY and Quiet Storm UK
December 17, 2018
Finishing up our 2018 Advertising Awards judges work roundup, we have two judges to show today! Both Bianca Guimaraes and Laurence Quinn are international creatives. So we thought we'd finish the series with our last two "worldy" judges. First u ...
New Campaign From Here Be Monsters
December 14, 2018
Just in time for the winter season, Here Be Monsters (HBM), an independent agency based in Vancouver, updates a classic holiday tradition for their newest campaign. Continuing the campaign for their client, Noodlebox, a Southeast Asian noodle ba ...
Advertising Awards Judges Work: DDB Canada
December 13, 2018
Continuing with our showcase of our 2018 Advertising Awards judges work, we arrive at Dean Lee, ECD at DDB Canada in Vancouver. Dean shares his latest campaign for Emerald Health. Designing a campaign for a cannabis company is all ab ...
The 2018 Winter Annual is Here!
December 12, 2018
2018 Advertising winner. "Trust Your Taste." Lg2 It is with great excitement that we introduce our final issue of the year, the 2019 Advertising Awards Annual! This annual is particularly significant to us here at Applied Arts, as it ...
Announcing our 2019 Photography and Illustration Awards
December 11, 2018
Pinter Creative Studio, Lindsay Siu,1957: Public Transit as a Metaphor for Societal Norms. Photo Manipulation - Single, 2018. Our first Awards program of the new year is now open! We are very excited to announce the call for entries for our 20 ...
Advertising Awards Judges Work: Sid Lee
December 10, 2018
As we get closer to our 2018 winter issue drop – which features our 2018 Advertising Awards Winners – we have been showcasing some work from our ad judges. This week we are exploring Kristian Manchester’s latest hits as global executive creativ ...
McMillan Rocks Ottawa
December 7, 2018
It’s not all business when you’re in Ottawa. Especially if you attended McMillan’s 613 Agency Rock-Off – Ottawa’s very own interagency Battle of the Bands – earlier last month. To help bring local-area agencies together, play some tu ...
Sneak Peek of our Winter Issue
December 5, 2018
2018 Ad winner. "Refuel. Restart." lg2. Our Winter 2018 issue is set to drop next week! This issue features our amazing Advertising Awards winners, not to mention it’s our first issue with editor Will Novosedlik. The Advertising Awards ar ...
Design Army Gives The Mocktail Club a Makeover
December 3, 2018
For their latest campaign, Washington, D.C.-based, Design Army rebrands and designs The Mocktail Club, a premium line of craft non-alcoholic beverages. Originally targeted to expecting mothers and health-conscious clients, Design Army has redesigned ...
The Big BC Snowball Fight
November 28, 2018
Vancouver-based creative agency Will returns with an updated version of the BC Children’s Hospital ‘Snowball Fight for Kids.’ The Big BC Snowball Fight is a virtual snowball fight, which raises donations for the hospital and its patients. ...
Noise 13 Designs for the Cannabis Market
November 26, 2018
When Skunk Factory, a cannabis company, approached San Francisco-based agency Noise 13 to create a new brand evolution they knew exactly what they were looking for. They needed a new packaging design for their vape kits, cartridges and flower, that w ...
Marvin Veloso: From Unemployed Graduate to Junior Art Director in Seven Days
November 21, 2018
Marvin's "Indian Motorcycle Company" Marvin Veloso graduated from Seneca College's Design program back in August 2018. Even though he was eager and ready to find a job, nothing seemed to land. Until this October. After Marvin's piece had won i ...
Advertising Young Blood Winners
November 14, 2018
Still from john st.'s "President's Choice Eat Together" campaign Here at Applied Arts, we’re all about promoting and showing off our junior winners! And with our Advertising Annual set to drop in early-December, we thought it would be a great time ...
Advertising Awards Judges Work: Cossette
November 12, 2018
As our Advertising Awards are set to be published in our winter annual, we would like to showcase some work from our judges panel. First up is Katie Ainsworth, ECD of Cossette Vancouver. For their newest project, Cossette takes us down memory lane wi ...
Q&A: Martin Dupuis
November 8, 2018
Martin Dupuis of Les Évadés is the art director for their Cinéma du Parc poster series. If these images look familiar, it's because they are. Dupuis' poster for Blade Runner was the cover of our 2018 Photography and Illustration annual. Since pub ...
Endangered Syndrome
November 8, 2018
The Canadian Down Syndrome Society (CDSS) has teamed up with Toronto-based agency FCB Canada to address the problem of dwindling services for people with Down Syndrome. As the number of people born with Down Syndrome declines, so do the voices o ...
10 Truths We Uncovered at DesignThinkers Toronto 2018
November 7, 2018
Under the theme of ‘Speak the Truth,' 2,000 designers gathered in Toronto on October 24 and 25 for the DesignThinkers 2018 Conference to discuss everything from the lack of colour in our wardrobes to the lack of diversity and why we need more peopl ...
Truth vs. Soap
November 7, 2018
Every once in a rare while you hear a brand story that is actually based on an empirical truth which, when carefully told, turns out to be far more effective than any of the fantasies conjured up by ad people to sell you whatever it is they are s ...
Investing In Our Future
October 31, 2018
Winning design category entry in Applied Arts 2018 Student Awards - a fictitious type specimen book for Dalton Maag's font family Aktiv Grotesk, by Humber College Graphic Design program student Jordan Jackson. In our recent Fall 2018 annual, Cos ...
Featuring Highlights the World of Kidz
October 30, 2018
To get a brand to reflect children and their lives, you must enter their world. For the newest project for children’s clothing brand Electrik Kidz, Featuring does just that. Electrik Kidz is a Montreal-based clothing brand that specializes i ...
Bob's Your Uncle Creates a Brew
October 30, 2018
Canadians are amongst the world’s biggest food wasters. In a report released by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the average Canadian throws out 396 kilograms of food each year. In turn, the food then decomposes in landfills and releas ...
Studio Baillat and Red Bull Music Festival
October 24, 2018
Montreal design firm Studio Baillat is back with a new design for the Red Bull Music Festival 2018. This is the studio’s third year designing for Red Bull Music. This year, the team at Baillat was challenged with creating a new and fresh image that ...
McMillan Brings Ottawa to Life
October 24, 2018
Ottawa-based B2B agency McMillan has been creating the design aspects and campaign for the Ottawa International Animation Festival (the second largest animation festival in the world) for the last five years. For this year’s campaign, McMillan’s ...
Grad Week Virtual Speakers Nov 14-21
October 24, 2018
Brittany Salzone, Savannah College of Art and Design. 2018 Student Award winner Applied Arts has added to its student activities by creating a virtual speaker series for post-secondary students about to graduate. Why virtual? So students from anywhe ...
Q&A: Andric
October 18, 2018
Architectural photography, advertising photography, commercial photography and fine-art photography. These are just some of the many areas that Andric, a Toronto-based photographer, covers and shoots. Andric is an international artist who has worked ...
Common Good and Tokyo Smoke Celebrate 10.17
October 16, 2018
How will you celebrate 10.17? With less than 24 hours until cannabis legalization across the country, this historic day, known as 10.17 (October 17), should be full of festivities. To help you make sure that your 10.17 is celebrated right, Toron ...
Target Finds Icebergs for NL Tourism
October 15, 2018
Target helps icebergs get ready for their close-up for NL Tourism Newfoundland and Labrador is a hot spot for icebergs. During iceberg season (spring and summer), the coast is dotted with multiple 10,000 year-old bergs. The bergs also bring alon ...
The Colour of Giving
October 10, 2018
How the United Way, TAXI and Pantone used the power of colour to reinvigorate a brand that was losing its lustre Charitable organizations everywhere are facing the same challenge: how to engage a new generation of donors (millennia ...
2018 Advertising Awards Winners Announced
October 9, 2018
2017 Advertising Award winner, Havas, Toronto (CCO Helen Pak), Entire Advertising Campaign We're pleased to reveal the list of 2018 Advertising Awards winners Email notifications were sent out last week. Thanks to everyone who entered and c ...
TBD and The Ad Council Address Bullying
October 9, 2018
In collaboration with San Francisco-based independent creative agency TBD, The Ad Council has released an anti-bullying campaign. The campaign (developed pro bono by TBD) has multiple aspects to it, all revolving around the impact of bullying towards ...
DesignThinkers is Around the Corner
October 4, 2018
DesignThinkers Toronto is almost here! Usually held in November, the event is October 24-25 this year. That means there’s no time to lose if you want sign up. Online registration closes October 18. DesignThinkers is a must for anyone in the ...
Spark44 Helps Ring in Land Rover’s 70th
October 2, 2018
Spark44’s newest campaign brings a Canadian twist to a British milestone. Land Rover has a long and interesting history. To showcase the history it has in Canadian lives, Wonder Screen, a Toronto-based production company, produced a 3-minute c ...
The Student & Community Awards Annual is Here
October 2, 2018
"See Creatures." Caroline Norman, Community - Cartoon / Comic Illustration What can we say? When it rains, it pours. We had a slight production hiccup when getting our Fall issue to press and then the news of the impending Canada Post strike cau ...
Update on the Student & Community Awards Annual
September 26, 2018
"Victorious": Giano Currie, Miami Ad School – Lynwood, Student - Photo Illustration/Mixed Media The domino effect. A slight production hiccup, partnered with a potential Canada Post strike resulted in the delay of the fall Student & C ...
Sid Lee Toronto Creates a Buzz
September 26, 2018
Sid Lee Toronto has joined the bee saving initiative. In collaboration with Alveole, an urban beekeeping company in Toronto, the team has created a number of products to help the bees. As the effects of climate change continue to put the bee popu ...
New Awareness Campaign from Camp Pacific
September 24, 2018
Wildfires destroy much of the environment they take place in. However, often people forget about the devastating effect fires have on our lives and our memories. To show the human aspect of wildfires and how they destroy more than forests, Camp Pacif ...
Student Awards Winners at Our Creative Futures Expo
September 19, 2018
Image: Coralie Carrier, CFP Maurice-Barbeau The Student Awards annual is coming soon. Look for our winners in this issue. Our student winners will also be displayed at our upcoming Creative Futures Expo – the best place for students to ...
Stack Creative Designs for Star Renegades
September 19, 2018
Stack Creative has teamed up with Massive Damage, to create a landing page and website for their new galactic video game, Star Renegades. Stack needed to tell the story of Star Renegades while at the same time show off its features to users. To ac ...
Design on the Way to Work
September 19, 2018
With a talent for snatching beauty from the jaws of decay, this young shooter reminds us that entropy always has the last laugh Instagram turns some people into collectors, some into curators, some into voyeurs. It turns other people into ...
Sneak Peek of Our Student and Community Awards Winners Gallery
September 12, 2018
With our new issue dropping later this month, we wanted to share a sneak peek of our Winners Gallery. This online gallery is an ongoing archive of our Awards winners. Take a look at what judges had to say about some of the winning entries in our Stud ...
Q&A: Carlos Moreno
September 12, 2018
Cossette has entered the world of movies with their newest campaign. In a game-changing direction, they have teamed up with renowned director Fleur Fortune and DOP Matias Boucard, to create a 13-minute short film entitled Dream Thieves. The client ...
BBDO Toronto Tackles COPD
September 11, 2018
BBDO launches a new awareness campaign. It’s estimated that 1.6 million of the 3.2 million Canadians living with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) don’t know they have it. To help combat this and bring awareness to COPD, BBDO Toronto ...
A Symphony of Sound From Target
September 5, 2018
Experience the musical landscape of Newfoundland and Labrador with Target Marketing. In their new campaign for Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism, Target captures the unique sound of the province. Wind chimes, whales calls and tolling church bell ...
Putting the Soul in Sol
September 5, 2018
Chicago-based brand agency Soulsight has partnered with MillerCoors to help relaunch Sol, a Mexican lager. The competition is fierce when it comes to beer and so to give Sol an extra edge to attract new customers (while at the same time not igno ...
The Life of a Dumpling
September 3, 2018
“Dumpling” is a broad term for a dish that consists of a doughy outer layer, usually stuffed with a meat or sweet filling. Usually the life of a dumpling is short—from the early stages of cooking to the final resting place in a full stomach. No ...
Sneak Peek of our Fall 2018 Issue
August 29, 2018
Illustrations from Student Awards winner Caleb Boyles Our Fall 2018 issue drops mid-September and this issue is packed with great content, not to mention both The Community and Student Awards winners. The Community and Student Awards annual ...
48North and Blok Design
August 28, 2018
For their latest project, Blok Design has teamed up with 48North, a women-led cannabis company, to create a brand identity that would showcase the direction and philosophy of the company. 48North is reimagining the cannabis landscape for women, ...
2018 Advertising Awards Extension
August 24, 2018
"The Keg Steakhouse & Bar: Nothing in Common," Palmer Jarvis DDB Vancouver. Consumer Magazine-Series, 2002. We have a special announcement to make! The 2018 Advertising Awards deadline has been extended to August 31. That means you have an e ...
Insider Tips for Entering Our 2018 Advertising Awards
August 23, 2018
There are only four more days to submit your entries to our 2018 Advertising Awards! We wanted to share some tips to make entering your pieces easier. Read through our hints below and enter at the end of the page. Good luck! To enter ...
Celebrate Take Your Cat to the Vet Day with BBDO Toronto
August 22, 2018
The makers of Whiskas cat food and BBDO Toronto have teamed up to create Cat Calm Radio, a radio station that plays calming music for your cat during car rides. The release of Cat Calm Radio coincides with National Take Your Cat to the Vet Day which ...
Work From Our 2018 Student Awards Judges
August 21, 2018
Eureka Catalogue created by Paprika The fall edition of Applied Arts is almost ready to be sent to the printers! This double annual will feature both the Student and Community Awards winners. The Student Awards are open to all post-secondary s ...
Find Your Sipsong with Noise 13
August 21, 2018
Noise 13, a women-led strategy and design firm based in San Francisco, has created a branding and label design for Sipsong Spirits, a new California small-batch liqueur company. The team behind the new design worked closely with owner and ...
Design of a Nation, or a Nation of Design?
August 16, 2018
How Canada’s image on the world stage was, for a brief period of time, defined by the heads, hearts and hands of the nation’s leading graphic designers Design Canada Title Canada History is and always has been hugely underrated. ...
Big Agency Wins From the 2017 Advertising Awards
August 15, 2018
Winning campaign 'Open House' from GREY Canada As we get closer to the deadline for our 2018 Advertising Awards (August 24!), we wanted to showcase the top winning agencies from last year to drive inspiration. Take a look at the top winners belo ...
Interview with Hatecopy
August 15, 2018
Painter and illustrator Maria Qamar talks about her work for The Yogen Früz Pinkberry Brain Project and the beginnings of her career. When Maria Qamar aka Hatecopy was asked to create a piece for The Yogen Früz Pinkberry Brain Project, an o ...
Print is Back
August 14, 2018
Earlier this summer, Fujifilm launched a movement. Yes, you’re reading that right. A movement, not a product. The Fujifilm Print Life Movement was launched to educate and inspire consumers to print their photographs. “Fujifilm is launc ...
Work From Our 2018 Community Awards Judges
August 8, 2018
Work from ON THE CHASE! The fall issue of Applied Arts will hit newsstands in September. This edition features two awards sections; the 2018 Community and Student awards. This is our second annual Community Awards, which focuses on smaller fir ...
New Era for Steam Whistle
August 8, 2018
Steam Whistle Brewery enters an age of sophistication with new brand identity The last time Steam Whistle updated their overall brand design and look, it was the early 2000s. And in those 17+ years, Steam Whistle has grown and changed as a compa ...
cHANGING pATTERNS
August 7, 2018
A fresh pattern design has been popping up in various Balzac’s cafés across Toronto. The wallpaper can be found at UP Express Union Station and gracing the walls at Powerhouse and Market Street locations. It’s even on the road, wrapped around th ...
New Work by The White Room
August 2, 2018
The White Room has entered the luxury wine market with their newest project for Baby Brunello. Following the European tradition of gifting a bottle of wine when a baby is born, The White Room has rebranded Baby Brunello to extend this traditio ...
Introducing The New Editor of Applied Arts
August 1, 2018
Photo credit: Chris Lynn We are very excited to announce our new editor, Will Novosedlik! Will has been a long time contributor to Applied Arts as well as a prominent strategist and designer in Canada and abroad. We look forward to having Will o ...
123w Tackles Driving Under the Influence
August 1, 2018
Vancouver-based agency 123w has teamed up with The British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) to create an awareness campaign that discusses impaired driving—now that cannabis is set to be legalized in the fall. The campaign, which i ...
Q&A: João Vaz de Carvalho
July 31, 2018
The Portuguese painter and illustrator shares his creative process and reflects on the message behind his images. For João Vaz de Carvalho, painting has been his central artistic medium. But he is more than just a painter-he is also an illustr ...
The 2018 Advertising Awards Judges Are Announced!
July 25, 2018
2017 Advertising Award winner "Sickkid Vs," from Cossette. Entire Advertising Campaign. The judges for our 2018 Advertising Awards have been announced! This years’ judges panel is an allstar cast, including; Ian Grais-founder and national CD ...
Rethink Has Too Much Fun with Playland
July 25, 2018
How do you communicate the universal feeling of fun? Emojis! In their newest “Too Much Fun” campaign for the amusement park Playland, Rethink uses the universal language of emojis to tap into the theme park experience. The c ...
Q&A: Alia youssef
July 23, 2018
The Toronto-based photographer explores womanhood and gendered Islamophobia in her series The Sisters Project Alia Youssef is the photographer behind The Sisters Project, a long-term portraiture series combating stereotypes and showcasing the mu ...
Rethink Surprises Torontonians with Ottawa-Themed Ice Cream
July 18, 2018
How do you promote a city that is often labelled as “bland?” Free food always works! Rethink Canada created a new campaign for Ottawa based on the insight that the city is often judged as boring, or “vanilla.” The agency aims to change t ...
New Work by Featuring
July 12, 2018
Cuisines Steam, a Montreal-based design company, has tapped creative agency Featuring (formerly Écorce) and website designer QuatreCentQuatre to create a digital marketing strategy and online store for their new modular kitchen brand, coquo. ...
Ethos Keeps Piknic Electronik Fresh and Fruity for 2018
July 11, 2018
Two years after first creating the identity for Piknic Electronik Montreal, Ethos is back with a new visual look for the festival. Piknic Electronik, an outdoor music festival in Montreal, first tapped creative agency Ethos and photographer Vi ...
Get With The Program
July 11, 2018
Programmatic creative should not be problematic © ar130405/Pixabay Do creatives get in this business to be creative? Of course. Does that mean that every working hour is creative? No. Creative in advertising has never been precious. If you wa ...
The Hive's New Campaign for OPG
July 10, 2018
In their newest campaign for Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Toronto-based agency The Hive invites you to sit around the campfire with Dammy The Beaver. To raise awareness for dam safety and the dangers of ignoring cautionary signs, Th ...
FIFA: From Fabergé to Football
July 9, 2018
The FIFA World Cup's graphic title cards on TSN are as rich in execution as they are in symbolism Ah, the World Cup. Like the Olympics, this quadrennial sports fest does its best to command or attention for the few weeks that it takes the ...
2018 Community Awards Winners Announced
June 29, 2018
Last year's Community Award winner White Crow Communications. Population Less Than 100,000, Public Service/Charity Design - Series We're pleased to reveal the list of 2018 Community Awards winners! Winners of the second annual Community Awa ...
2018 Student Awards Winners Announced
June 29, 2018
Image by last year's Student Award winner Airisa Seflere, Langara College, Photography - Series The 2018 Student Awards winners list is here! Huge thanks go out to our judges! They evaluated each entry independently and scored based on cre ...
Jesus Murphy! A Case Study of Canadianisms with WAX
June 29, 2018
Illustration for the phrase 'Jesus Murphy' Canadians use a lot of euphemisms, or “Canadianisms,” that cover a variety of topics. From food and drink slang (“double double”) to phrases and sayings (“splittin’ the rocks”). But what d ...
Q&A: JEANNIE PHAN
June 28, 2018
The freelance illustrator talks inspiration and navigating the path between work and personal time If you’ve picked up a copy of The Walrus or Canadian Living in the past year, then you have surely seen Jeannie Phan’s colourful illustrations ...
For the Love of Type! Pressing On: The Letterpress Film
June 26, 2018
When Erin Beckloff became a letterpress printer eight years ago, she knew that she wanted to preserve the knowledge about the centuries-old practice that she found in the community. A few years passed before she approached Bayonet Media co-foun ...
Les Usherwood Collection & Font Memorabilia Available
June 25, 2018
Attention, typography collectors: a former graphic arts technician is selling a series of posters and other memorabilia he collected while working for Les Usherwood throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s. Below is the list of what's ava ...
The 2018 Design Awards Winners Gallery is Live!
June 22, 2018
Leo Burnett Toronto The 2018 Design Awards are published in the new 2018 Summer issue, available here. Head over to our Winners Gallery to check them out! Winning an Applied Arts Award means your work is showcased with the best of t ...
High Design: Canadian Cannabis BRANDING Sparks Up
June 21, 2018
With cannabis legalization around the corner, Canadian designers are finding ways to elevate a burgeoning new industry despite strict packaging regulations The road to cannabis legalization in Canada could best be described as one littered with ...
THE CREATIVITY COUP
June 21, 2018
When it comes to creative achievement, Quebec is making some bold moves. Writer Will Novosedlik explores how historical events, cultural awakenings and decades of political support have positioned the province as a "Silicon Valley of creativity" ...
The Summer 2018 Issue is Published!
June 20, 2018
Our much-anticipated 2018 Design annual is currently on its way to mailboxes and select newsstands! We've beefed up the Design Awards section, giving extra pages to our winners so that we could show their pieces as large as possible. More ...
Orange Keel Creates Innovative Packaging for EarthFresh Foods
June 20, 2018
Packaging challenge: How do you make a potato, that humblest of foods, sexy? Orange Keel, an Oakville, Ontario–based brand strategy and design agency, recently wrapped up a mission to do just that for potato purveyor EarthFresh Foods, wh ...
Top 5 Things To Do At the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair
June 18, 2018
The Toronto Outdoor Art Fair (TOAF) is back for its 57th season! Formerly known as the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Canada’s largest and longest-running juried contemporary art event has rebranded to reflect its new vision. This year’s ...
Work From Our 2018 Design Awards Judges
June 12, 2018
Karolina Loboda, creative director and co-founder of The White Room, shares this picture from her agency's recent project—an image campaign for Valentine Rouge. The Summer 2018 issue of Applied Arts is about to hit newsstands across t ...
john st. Lets You Eat Pizza in Bed
June 12, 2018
Can pizza get any better? If you’re creative agency john st., then the answer is yes. Their newest innovation for Boston Pizza is a series of limited-edition pizza boxes that turn into self-supporting tables—allowing customers to eat their ...
10 Truths We Learned at DesignThinkers 2018
June 12, 2018
At the first 2018 instalment of DesignThinkers last month, designers were dropping a lot of industry truth bombs. RGD rounds up 10 of the best THIS SECTION SPONSORED BY “Wow, that looks great!” Lie. “We made a few tweaks to t ...
New Changes for Stocksy United
June 11, 2018
© Santi Nuñez Attention, image makers: The artist-owned, Victoria-based photography and cinematography co-op Stocksy United has made some significant changes to its business model. Since its beginnings in 2012, Stocksy United has ...
Sneak Peek of Our Summer 2018 Issue
June 6, 2018
© Pol Turgeon Our Summer 2018 issue drops mid-June, and it's packed with inspiration! The Design Awards annual features 120+ pages of winning work from studios and freelancers across Canada and beyond in a special awards section sponsore ...
Living the Dreamscape
June 5, 2018
When graphic design meets fine art Larry Rossignol, The Struggle Continues While attending an event at the venerable Toronto jazz haunt Hugh’s Room last week, I found myself enchanted by a body of work hung on the walls there as part of ...
Poster Series: The Most Iconic Bridges in America
May 31, 2018
In terms of transportation, bridges play a major role in the movement of people, goods and vehicles. They shape the landscape where they are built and are often seen as landmarks. However, many people are unaware of the background of these ...
Zulu Alpha Kilo Brings the Truth to DesignThinkers 2018
May 29, 2018
DesignThinkers is back again and this year they are bringing the truth with them. The annual DesignThinkers conference, hosted by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD), has officially kicked off with its second Vancouver of ...
New Stamp Set Features Great Canadian Illustrators
May 29, 2018
Canada Post is recognizing the work of five prolific artists with its new Great Canadian Illustrators series. The stamps, which were released in April, each feature a single, high-impact past work by Anita Kunz, Blair Drawson, Gérard DuBo ...
Deadline Extension for the 2018 Community Awards!
May 29, 2018
Community, Population above 500,00, Hyr. Entire Design Program- Campaign, 2017. We’ve heard your concerns and acted! The 2018 Community Awards deadline has been extended until June 1. That means you still have a few more days to pick ...
DESIGN ARMY'S NEW WORK FOR HONG KONG BALLET
May 29, 2018
Design Army's photo-heavy campaign for Hong Kong Ballet celebrates culture In its new campaign for the Hong Kong Ballet, Washington, DC–based creative agency Design Army combines the classic imagery of ballet against the backdrop of Hong Kong ...
2018 Student Awards Deadline Extended to June 1!
May 24, 2018
Heli Prajapati, Humber College, EATS: 2011 Annual Report. Design-Editorial-Single, 2012. Have you been rushing to submit your work for our 2018 Student Awards? Take a breather—the deadline has been extended for another week! You’v ...
3 New Graphic Design Books to Perfect Your Technique
May 24, 2018
Layout Work by Kristin Cullen with Dennis Puhalla Looking for a new summer read? Interested in taking your work to the next level? With countless design books out there, it may be hard to narrow down which one is a worthy read. So we’ ...
Future by Design AI, Type and Inclusivity
May 23, 2018
Panelists discuss inclusivity, communication and how designers should respond to “evil robots” at RGD’s latest Future By Design discussion THIS SECTION SPONSORED BY On April 24, RGD invited creative industry leaders Lara McCormick, ...
McCann Canada Gets Digital with New Campaign for Prostate Cancer Canada
May 18, 2018
A new advertising campaign by McCann Canada brings humour to a medical test that many find uncomfortable. The digital rectal examination—when a doctor inserts a gloved finger into the rectum to check for irregularities—is one of the mos ...
Zulu Alpha Kilo Sheds Light on Mental Health
May 18, 2018
Still from commercial In the world of healthcare, there are many differences between physical and mental illnesses. Not only with diagnosis and treatment, but also with the attitude surrounding them. Mental illness is often stigmatized and ...
john st. Brands No Frills into a Millennial Dream
May 11, 2018
How do you take something like shopping for inexpensive groceries and make it hip? You create a unique hashtag, tease the advert on social media and throw in a streetwear clothing line. These are the tactics that advertising agency john st. use ...
Here Be Monsters Creates a Snappy New Campaign
May 10, 2018
Still from video Here Be Monsters, Vancouver’s newest creative agency, just released its first campaign for client SnapQuote. In an age where information can be found at your fingertips within seconds, companies need to be ahead of th ...
lg2 Celebrates the Creative Process with DeSerres
May 9, 2018
How do you redesign a 110-year-old company that’s been rebranded several times over and get something new and fresh? DeSerres, one of Canada’s leading art supplies stores, tapped lg2 to take on the task. And the creative agency had a lot of grou ...
Advertising the Bad News
May 8, 2018
The Centre for the Study of Political Graphics stages a show of posters designed solely by women Barbara Kruger, 1989 Focused on the collection, preservation and study of political posters, The Center for the Study of Political Graphics i ...
Eighty-Eight's New Brand Positioning for Cannabis Company Lift & Co.
May 7, 2018
Ahead of the legalization of cannabis in Canada this summer, Toronto creative agency Eighty-Eight just completed a brand repositioning for its first cannabis client, Lift & Co. Lift & Co. is an online cannabis review resource that ...
The White Room Creates a Luxe Look for Julie Charbonneau Design
May 7, 2018
Custom Folder When Julie Charbonneau Design (JCD), a luxury residential interior design firm based in Toronto, decided they needed a new promotional kit to draw in prospective clients, they looked to The White Room to execute the project. Acco ...
nabs Art Auction 2018
May 3, 2018
Auction piece by Jack Neary The National Advertising Benevolent Society (nabs) has officially kicked off its month-long awareness and fundraising event called nabs month. Nabs month concludes with an art auction on May 30. “During the mont ...
Getting Frank with a Canadian ad legend
May 2, 2018
He’s well into his 70s, but with a new biography and more business to be won, Frank Palmer shows no sign of slowing down We’re already 55 minutes into a discussion about his new biography, Let’s Get Frank, a rambling conversation that has ...
Q&A: Anthony Ricciardi
May 2, 2018
A piece from Anthony Ricciardi's Enjoy the Moment exhibition The Toronto-based artist stages a new mixed-media exhibition exploring celebrity Toronto-based artist Anthony Ricciardi hasn’t been in the art world for very long, but t ...
DDB Canada Addresses Human Trafficking
May 1, 2018
© DDB Canada Toronto Last week Toronto Crime Stoppers and design firm DDB Canada Toronto launched a campaign to shine a light on human trafficking in areas where it is most prevalent—airports. The campaign aims to educate the public on s ...
3 Top Exhibitions to See at Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival 2018
April 30, 2018
Photo © Nichole Sobecki The annual Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival is back in Toronto through the end of May. This event is the largest of its kind it the world, and features more than 200 exhibitions and happenings throughout th ...
Casey House Premieres June's Documentary
April 25, 2018
When Bensimon Byrne started working with Casey House, a standalone hospital for people living with HIV/AIDS, the team made a startling discovery. While HIV cannot be transmitted through food preparation or food sharing, in a survey of Canadians ...
A New Design Era For Firmex
April 25, 2018
Firmex's old (left) and new identities Toronto-based Firmex, a virtual data room provider, has undergone a major brand makeover. Under creative director Philipp Boltz, the Firmex design has been reinvented to showcase the company’s success a ...
Two for One: Winners of the Annual Double Vision Competition
April 25, 2018
Image by Giovaninna Colalillo The annual Double Vision competition, hosted by The Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators (CAPIC), has released its winners. The national competition, which was exhibited earlier this month at the ...
What to Do at Digifest 2018
April 19, 2018
Digifest, the three-day creative technology festival, is back at Corus Quay this April 26-28. For this year’s festival, the theme “Hello Tomorrow: Our Creative Cities” will address the many problems that future cities will face. As t ...
Community Awards Deadline is May 25
April 18, 2018
Justin Kowalczuk Design, "Tegler Youth Centre Mural." The call for entry for the second annual Applied Arts Community Awards is in full swing! The contest is open to freelancers and studios operating in Canada who are producing work for loca ...
Underline Studio Publicizes the Migrant Crisis with Newspaper Design
April 18, 2018
Underline Studio is back with its third newspaper campaign in three years highlighting human rights issues in Central America. “Lines Breaking” focuses on the Central America migrant crisis and is the latest instalment to join 2015’s ...
2018 Design Awards Winners Announced
April 17, 2018
An entry by Sid Lee from last year's Design Awards competition We have the winners' list for the 2018 Design Awards! A big thanks goes out to our panel of judges, who collectively reviewed all of the entries and made their selects. The wo ...
Q&A: Natalia Dolan on Turning Passion Projects into Business Growth
April 11, 2018
As with many passion projects, it was something in Natalia Dolan’s day job as an editorial and commercial portrait photographer that led to a great idea. While photographing women for clients such as Ryerson University and Google Canada, she ...
Get Inspired While You Prep for the Student Awards - Deadline May 25!
April 11, 2018
"All My Relations," Ashlee McCurdy, Savannah College of Art and Design. Design - Series, 2017 As the school year comes to a close, there is one last thing students in creative advertising, graphic design, interactive media, photography and illustr ...
New Work from Les Evades
April 11, 2018
Montreal agency Les Évadés shares a new set of posters for client Cinema du Parc (see more of their work for the client on the cover of our Spring 2018 issue!). The theatre started a new program called Matins au Parc for Kids, which sc ...
Q&A: Natalia Dolan
April 11, 2018
The photographer tells us how her Girl Friends project combines a personal interest with a sound business opportunity As with many passion projects, it was something in Natalia Dolan’s day job as an editorial and commercial portrait photograph ...
Evolution: Life in the Land of the Dead
April 4, 2018
Behind the scenes of Coco with animator Brendan Beesley Seneca College’s School of Creative Arts and Animation is clearly doing something very right: Six alumni recently celebrated their visual effects and animation work on the Academy Award-w ...
It Takes All Types
April 4, 2018
In praise of the erudite typographer For whatever it’s worth, I’ve taken the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—better known as the standard IQ test—twice in my life, at a 20-year interval. Both times, the score was the same and was ...
Blueprint: Toronto
March 27, 2018
The city of the future will one day rise—and Sidewalk Labs aims to be chief architect with its tech-heavy design vision for a “smart” neighbourhood in Canada’s biggest city Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabe ...
2018 Grad Show Calendar
March 26, 2018
Design work by Capilano University's IDEA School of Design graduate Mitch Hopkins Congratulations to the class of 2018! The end is almost in sight—but before graduation comes the grad shows! Students in creative arts programs across Canada are exh ...
Build a Better Homepage
March 23, 2018
The humble homepage: give it a single goal to see success smashLAB's homepage for SNAP When you redesign your website, the homepage seems like a blank canvas. It’s your company’s “Hello, World!” and you can put anything on it. ...
Recent Work from our Photography & Illustration Awards Judges
March 21, 2018
Tom Murphy, creative director at Target, shares one of his agency's recent projects—a photo of the Viking Huts at L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site for Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism The Spring 2018 issue is now on newsstands, ...
Connecting the Dots with The White Room
March 20, 2018
Toronto’s The White Room recently unveiled a brand revamp for Connect, an interior design and facility management firm that primarily deals with corporate clients. Neil Rodman, creative director at The White Room, says that after 20 year ...
Arrive Alive Brings Back Wrecked Car Coasters for St. Patrick's Day
March 16, 2018
Ontario sober-driving charity Arrive Alive is bringing its Applied Arts Award–winning “Wrecked Car Coasters” back for a second year in order to educate drivers on the dangers of impaired driving on one of the year’s biggest party weeken ...
The Life and Work of W.A. Dwiggins on Mar. 20
March 15, 2018
Design history buffs—if Dwiggins delights you, Bruce Kennett is giving a free talk on the prolific artist and designer at The Arts & Letters Club in Toronto on Tuesday, March 20. Kennett, a designer himself, recently published a b ...
The 2018 Photography & Illustration Awards Winners' Galleries are Live!
March 12, 2018
"Summer SPF Campaign for Sephora," Gabrielle Sykes. Fashion & Beauty Photography - Series The 2018 Photography & Illustration Awards winners are published in the new Spring 2018 issue! To see the winners online, head to our Winners Ga ...
The Spring 2018 Issue is Published!
March 12, 2018
The first issue of the year is making its way to newsstands and mailboxes this week! Trying to find us? Check our list of stockists or download the digital edition. This is our highly anticipated Photography & Illustration annual, fe ...
Collective Agreement
March 11, 2018
Creative collectives are cooking up a culture shift, allowing independent artists to join forces. Whether it’s highlighting diverse voices, supporting passion projects or amplifying social issues, this new model of working shows there is power in n ...
2018 Design Awards Deadline Extended to Mar. 16
March 9, 2018
"Semiconductor Industry Association 2007 Annual Rep," Methodologie. Annual Report - Single, 2007 Design Awards Happy Friday! We've extended the deadline for the 2018 Design Awards until Friday, March 16. Entering is easy and only takes a few ...
Designing with Data
March 9, 2018
Blending narrative, numbers and new technology, data visualization turns information science into an art form Financial companies, NGOs and media organizations have used rudimentary data visualization tools for decades, publishing maps, bar gr ...
Plastic Mobile Reimagines Google's Image Search for International Women's Day
March 8, 2018
Photo © Filip Mroz, Plastic Mobile It’s well documented that the technology industry is one of the holdouts when it comes to better gender representation in the workforce. A 2017 ISACA study indicates women hold only one in four technology jo ...
BBDO Shows Greatness is Rare for the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games
March 6, 2018
When the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games kick off on Thursday, March 8, BBDO Toronto and the Canadian Paralympic Committee plan to make them most-watched yet. Led by the insights that 50 per cent of Canadians plan to engage with the ...
Happiness is a Warm Gun
March 5, 2018
How the U.S. gun industry uses tired tropes to brand itself There is an old frontier saying in America: “God created men. But Colt made them equal.” And if that sounds like a tagline, that’s because with the possible exception of ...
Q&A with Stefan G. Bucher
February 28, 2018
Designer parents looking to teach their kids about letterforms and type would do well to pick up the recently released LetterHeads book by LA-based designer and illustrator Stefan G. Bucher. Bucher, who runs his own studio, 344 Design, creat ...
Q&A: Stefan G. Bucher
February 28, 2018
The designer sculpts 3D letterforms in his new book Designer parents looking to teach their kids about letterforms and type would do well to pick up the recently released LetterHeads book by LA-based designer and illustrator Stefan G. Bucher. Bu ...
A Sneak Peek of the March Issue
February 21, 2018
Photo © Luis Mora The first of this year's four issues is just around the corner, and we want to give you a sneak peek of what's inside! The Photography & Illustration Awards annual features more than 100 pages of winning work from ...
Q&A: Anna Peftieva, Moon Man Magazine
February 20, 2018
A new publication out of London, UK celebrates the intersection of art, design and culture Feast your eyes on this new production-heavy project out of London, UK’s Moon Man Studios. The creative agency launched its own culture publication, Moo ...
COFO Launches Design Challenge and New Brand Identity
February 15, 2018
Designer Trish Roque, selected for the first collaboration, along with COFO partner Randy Simmen We’re big believers at Applied Arts that Canadian design can easily compete on an international level. So too is COFO, the country’s newest de ...
Happy V-Day! 3 Projects That Will Have You Loving Creativity
February 14, 2018
Happy Valentine's Day! Here are a few Cupid-inspired creative projects that landed on our desk this week. "Love Lost" (pictured, above) is a sweet digital piece from Jam3. Adrian Belina, partner and executive creative director, says the t ...
Future by Design
February 13, 2018
Democratic, intangible & human-centred: industry experts discuss shifting perspectives for the role of design in 2018 On January 30, Debbie Millman (Design Matters), Carissa Carter (Stanford d.school) and James Lovejoy (Google Experime ...
McDonald's Canada Earns Some Street Cred
February 12, 2018
McDonald’s Canada is riffing on millennial culture with its latest “Big Mac x Bacon” campaign to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Big Mac. The “limited-edition collaboration” developed by Cossette introduces the iconic sandw ...
In Praise of Older Women
February 6, 2018
Armed with a solid niche strategy and well-crafted design, small companies like Ralston Williams can flourish in the marketplace Photo by Chris Chapman There is something very satisfying when great design meets a great brand. Especially w ...
2018 Photography & Illustration Awards Winners Announced
February 5, 2018
A winner from last year. Wonderlust, "Teen Mental Health - Pathway Through Care," Motion - Single, 2017 Illustration Awards The winners' list of the 2018 Photography & Illustration Awards is here! Winners will have their work and cred ...
Mount Seymour's Unofficial New Identity
January 31, 2018
Designer Ken Paul, CGD shares a recent personal project with us: A poster to celebrate the mountain bike trails of Mount Seymour. Located in the District of North Vancouver, BC and the Mount Seymour Provincial Park, the mountain bike tra ...
Beyond the Brief
January 30, 2018
Giving a client what they need should be as much a priority as giving them what they want When I was in school more than a decade ago (where does the time go?), I had an epiphany. I'd been given a poster assignment and a “client” brief, so I ...
Applied Arts Helps to Select RGD's Top Case Studies of 2017
January 25, 2018
We recently participated on an RGD jury to determine the best design case studies of 2017 for the association's annual round-up. Our Judges' Pick went to the in-house design team at the National Gallery of Canada for their innovative treatm ...
FCB/SIX Visualizes Equality with Destination Pride
January 24, 2018
PFLAG Canada, with the help of digital brand experience agency FCB/SIX, is giving the pride flag an extra level of meaning with its new "Destination Pride" campaign, which assigns each bar of the flag to a metric measuring freedoms for LGBTQ ...
Carter Hales Design Lab's Poetic New Identity for Bard on the Beach
January 24, 2018
“To thine own self be true”—Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival really took their namesake’s words to heart with their recent rebrand. The company, which stages summertime Shakespeare plays under tents in the cit ...
Q&A: FCB/SIX Visualizes Equality with Destination Pride
January 24, 2018
The brand experience agency creates a real-time pride flag visualization of global LGBTQ+ rights PFLAG Canada, with the help of digital brand experience agency FCB/SIX, is giving the pride flag an extra level of meaning with its new "Destinati ...
Blending In with Joseph Ford
January 17, 2018
Photographer Joseph Ford's quirky ongoing "Knitted Camouflage" series brings the art of camouflage to urban environments. Ford worked with his friend Nina Dodd, who knitted custom sweaters for models that would perfectly match the backgrou ...
Creative Agency Wunder on Meat-ing Expectations
January 17, 2018
A simple way to boost a brand is to show the effectiveness of its product in action. Or, you can go viral, of course. Nova Scotia Webcams recently managed to do both. The company maintains more than 75 cameras around the province, most of ...
Ten Picks from the Photography & Illustration Archive - Deadline Jan 12!
January 10, 2018
"Mexico - Palliative Care," Ed Kashi. Photojournalism Photography - Single, 2015 This Friday, January 12 is the extended deadline for entry into the 2018 Photography & Illustration Awards! We always get a little nostalgic ahead of deadline ...
Branding Abuse
January 8, 2018
The powerful branding behind movements like #TimesUp benefit the "plural sector" Watching Elisabeth Moss accept the Golden Globe last night for her lead role in The Handmaid’s Tale, you sensed the feeling of a grassroots movement catchin ...
Next Gen Dinner Series Deadline is January 15
January 3, 2018
Next Gen Dinner Series 2017 Designer Maddie Brown knows firsthand the importance of networking in the creative industry. When she landed her UX gig at Nurun in June 2017, immediately after earning her postgraduate certificate in web design fro ...
Q&A: Bringing Your Whole Self
January 2, 2018
An interview with designer and maker Laci Jordan This is the third in a series of Q&As in which art director Joel Derksen chats with international designers about their craft. Also be sure to read his interview with Barbara Franz, senior d ...
Design Project Marks 100 Years Since the Halifax Explosion
December 6, 2017
Ekistics Planning & Design and Form:Media come together to tell a tragic story through landscape and design OVERVIEW For the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, the Halifax Regional Municipality commissioned Ekistics Planning & ...
Create What Matters
September 11, 2017
Forget demography and embrace ethnography If you work in strategy in advertising today, chances are, like mine, your family has a hard time explaining what you do for a living. That got me thinking, why is it so hard? Part of it is that the ...
DesignThinkers is a Feast for the Eyes
August 22, 2017
When the RGD’s DesignThinkers conference headed west for the first time earlier this year, Vancouver stalwart Rethink made sure the event was the most eye-catching one in town. The agency worked with the RGD on an event theme and visual ...
2017 Student Awards Winners Announced
July 6, 2017
From last year's competition: Thibault Magni, UQAM. "Fanzine: Summer," Student Awards 2016 We're excited to present the list of 2017 Student Awards winners below. A big thanks goes out to our judges! They evaluated each entry independen ...
2017 Advertising Awards Winners Announced
June 7, 2017
The in-person jury for the 2017 Advertising Awards hangs out at Centennial College at a well-known spot used in the TV series Degrassi High. We are pleased to reveal the list of 2017 Advertising Award winners! This year, due to th ...
Chain Reaction
May 8, 2017
During a small-scale branding exercise for Earls, two Vancouver design firms helped the restaurant realize it needed something much bigger—a company-wide rebrand Objectives Ever since Earls launched 35 years ago as “Earls Tin Pa ...
Tourism Nova Scotia Sees it Both Ways
April 21, 2017
Tourism Nova Scotia launches the second phase of its "If You Only Knew" campaign If you think Nova Scotia is all fishing and lighthouses, think again. A recently launched marketing effort by Tourism Nova Scotia in conjunction w ...
NOCTURNALTOURIST: Q&A With Cosmo Campbell
April 17, 2017
DDB Canada's EVP, CCO shares his personal photography project #nocturnaltourist By day, Cosmo Campbell heads up the creative department at DDB Canada. By night, he applies what he's learned in his 30 years in graphic design to the ...
2017 Design Awards Winners Announced
April 12, 2017
2017 Design Awards in-person jury Drumroll, please! It's time to reveal the winners' list for the 2017 Design Awards. This year, due to the volume of entries, we had an online jury and an in-person jury (above). Online ...
A Beer Rebrand on National Beer Day
April 7, 2017
Before you crack a cold one today for National Beer Day, check out this brand-new rebranding project for Stanley Park Brewing by Vancouver creative agency Will. The beer company’s packaging has always paid homage to its names ...
The March Issue is Published!
March 1, 2017
The long winter wait is over—our first issue of 2017 is making its way to mailboxes soon! Our March/April issue has been published, and it's the first-ever Community Awards annual, celebrating work from Canada's re ...
2017 Photography & Illustration Awards Winners Announced
February 17, 2017
A winner from last year. Ethan Pines, "At Home With Ra." Advertising Photography - Series, 2016 Photography Awards We're pleased to reveal the list of 2017 Photography & Illustration Awards winners! Winners will have their wor ...
2017 Community Awards Winners Announced
January 25, 2017
The first Applied Arts Awards program of the year is complete and we are eager to share the results for the first-ever Community Awards! We launched this new program on the eve of Canada's sesquicentennial, and to celebr ...
New Work from Baillat
December 2, 2016
Dig deeper into two recent projects by Montreal design studio Baillat Digital Arts Biennal/Elektra Festival Elektra, Montreal’s annual digital arts festival, has a long-standing commitment to poppy visuals for its event collateral, and th ...
The November/December Issue is Available Now!
November 1, 2016
Calling all students! The popular Student Awards annual has been published and is on its way to subscribers and newsstands. This edition features nearly 100 pages of winning work by student artists in Canada and beyond, plus valuable insight on how ...
The September/October Issue is Published!
August 31, 2016
Good news—the September/October issue has been published and is on its way to newsstands and mailboxes this week! The magazine is chock full of content about the advertising and interactive disciplines, in honour of the Adverti ...
2016 Student Award Winners Announced
July 7, 2016
From last year's competition: Meaghan Chapin, George Brown College, Advertising - Single, 2015 We're pleased to present the list of 2016 Student Awards winners below. Thanks to our team of judges who got through all the entr ...
Celluloid Dreams
June 8, 2016
Shayne Laverdière’s narrative, cinematic style and A-list clients catapult him into the spotlight Shayne Laverdière says he still pinches himself every day, amazed at how his photography career has taken off. &ld ...
2016 Interactive Awards Winners Announced
June 2, 2016
Magic Mirror by Leo Burnett Toronto won an Interactive Award in 2015 in the category of Augmented Reality. We're pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 Interactive Awards! Our panel of senior-level creative pros spent the las ...
Getting Real with Images
May 31, 2016
How to shoot the new "authentic" Let’s face it, the word “authenticity” has lost all meaning. More accurately it's become offensive, instilling laughter from audiences by the sheer mention of the word with the mockery ...
If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Redesign It
May 17, 2016
Sometimes, the only thing that needs fixing is the brief In the pre-Internet days of advertising, there was a lament voiced whenever a client asked for a new campaign to replace one that was only a few months old: The client got tired of the ...
McMillan's New Look
May 16, 2016
We’re not the only ones who had a milestone birthday this year and decided to change our look! Ottawa agency McMillan recently marked 20 years in the business and debuted a brand overhaul to celebrate. The new look i ...
Applied Arts Marks 30 Years with the Golden AACE Awards
April 27, 2016
Anita Kunz, Golden AACE Image recipient. Last night, Applied Arts magazine honoured three creative industry legends with the Golden AACE Awards at its 30th anniversary celebration, a private event held in Toronto. The Golden AACE Awards re ...
2016 Design Awards Winners Announced
April 27, 2016
The judges of the 2016 Design Awards We're pleased to reveal the winners' list for the 2016 Design Awards. Our panel of judges (above), reviewed hundreds of entries and made their selects over two weeks in April, which ended ...
Makers of Things Aren't Always Makers of Sense
April 20, 2016
Just because they can doesn’t mean they should I’ve just learned that LinkedIn has 749 members who describe themselves with the title Maker of Things. A review of these members suggests that the only things some of these folks ma ...
30 years, 30 Typography winners
April 5, 2016
Since our post on 30 famous faces was a fan favourite, we decided to round up 30 of our favourite typography winners! Get ready to scroll through some eye-catching images in honour of our 30th anniversary. If that’s not enough and you’d ...
Another Bad Week for Women in Advertising
March 22, 2016
Our industry could have learned a lot from the Neil French debacle. It chose not to As recently as 1970, female musicians made up less than 5 per cent of the top five orchestras in the United States. By 1980, that figure had crept up to the ...
Our 30th Anniversary Issue is Published!
March 1, 2016
Well, it's finally here! Our 30th anniversary edition is packed with more editorial than ever before. Join us down memory lane as we revisit work from our awards archive and discuss 30 ways the creative industry landscape has changed since ...
2016 Photography & Illustration Awards Winners Announced
February 19, 2016
Nuit Magique, Leda & St-Jacques, from our 2015 program The results of our first awards program of the year are in! Our panel of judges spent weeks combing through thousands of entries. We just tallied their scores and ar ...
Applied Arts Announces Creative Collaborators for 2016
December 7, 2015
Edmond Ng and Emily Tu, Tung On the eve of our 30th anniversary year, Applied Arts is pleased to announce the appointment of Toronto-based creative studio Tung as its new creative collaborator. Emily Tu and Edmond Ng, the award-winning duo behin ...
Meet the Maker
December 4, 2015
For the newly minted Maker Pizza, that means crafting the best-tasting delivery pizza — and looking good while doing it, too. Pizza joints are abundant in Toronto, so if you’re going to open a new one, you’d better have something that sets you ...
Liking Isn't Buying
November 16, 2015
Technology is a powerful force in marketing. Just look how it's blinded us to reality It's been a busy few weeks for people who question the wisdom of putting technology in charge of marketing. First, the great Dave Trott took on the ambitious t ...
DesignThinkers on the State of Canadian Design
November 12, 2015
We're at the RGD's DesignThinkers Conference in Toronto today and tomorrow, November 13. Back in May, Claire Dawson, a designer and partner at Underline Studio in Toronto, wrote an article for Applied Arts titled "Reclaiming Canadian Design." ...
The November/December Issue is Published!
November 2, 2015
The November/December 2015 issue is published! We're thrilled to reveal the cover of the Student Awards annual, wonderfully illustrated by Michael Zavacky, the art director at McMillan. The Ottawa-based branding agency was our guest art director for ...
The 21st Century Belongs to PR
August 17, 2015
PR firms aren't just eating advertising's lunch. They're already looking forward to dinner Just last week, it was announced that Andrew Simon was leaving his role as chief creative officer at Cundari to join Edelman Canada as its executive creative ...
Becoming KD
August 7, 2015
Behind the rebrand of Canada's favourite mac 'n' cheese When I was a kid and my dad went out of town on business, I looked forward to Kraft Dinner night, when my mom would throw on a pot of the mac ‘n’ cheese and add chopped wieners. What wa ...
Writers Needed
July 21, 2015
Advertising has never been more in need of good writing. Why aren't more of us doing it? Another edition of Cannes has come and gone and, whatever its faults, it does continue to serve as a bellwether of advertising and its priorities. Consider, ...
Stamp of Approval
July 17, 2015
A decade-old postage project gets a new life Sometimes getting client approval is a monumental process, one that can take weeks, months, even a year or two. When it finally happens, it’s a huge relief. So how does it feel after 12 years? LA ...
2015 Student Awards Winners Announced
July 15, 2015
Yoshino Aoki, a student at Concordia University, won a 2014 Student Award for her animation Drumroll, please! The results of the 2015 Student Awards are in! Our team of judges have finished sifting through the submitted work and it was no easy tas ...
A Cup in the Life of an Ad Exec
July 14, 2015
The next time you're filling your coffee cup during a long day at the office, you'll wish you had one of these cheeky mugs designed by Zulu Alpha Kilo. The Toronto-based agency recently kitted out its in-house cafe with the drinkware, each detailin ...
The July/August Issue is Published!
June 30, 2015
They'reeeeeeee baaaaaack! We've returned to our guest art director program this year, and we're delighted to introduce Jacknife as our first of 2015. The Toronto-based design studio took it upon themselves to come up with our theme for the issue ...
Photographs, Remixed
June 25, 2015
Two artists are better than one! Toronto photographer Koby and New York illustrator Gary Fernández brought their talents together for "Bojana," a photo illustration project that celebrates spring. Koby stumbled across Fernández's work onlin ...
How S8 Turned Cannes into a Creative Playground
June 24, 2015
Gary Thomas with S8's gala video. Photo courtesy S8 When Toronto creative collective S8 was tasked with producing the filmic montages for the opening and closing galas of the Cannes Lions festival this year, it was a boon not only for the creative t ...
Drawing Canadian Identity
June 17, 2015
Photo courtesy Aquil Virani Montreal artist Aquil Virani creates a collaborative art piece on what it means to be Canadian using hundreds of crowdsourced sketches On Canada Day, July 1, Montreal artist and designer Aquil Virani will unveil his larg ...
On the Genius of Wrongheadedness
June 15, 2015
Counterintuitive thinking has built and rescued countless brands. How come we don't do more of it? Probably the single most famous story in advertising lore concerns the late-1970s pitch for British Rail by the now-defunct London agency Allen Br ...
2015 Advertising Awards Winners Revealed
June 8, 2015
john st. won an Advertising Award in 2014 for "No Way," in the Young Blood Television - Single category One of our most heated competitions of the year has wrapped up! The scores have been tallied after an intensive judging process that involved onl ...
The Problem With the $50 Logo
June 8, 2015
The Internet and its proliferation of cheap brand executions may have changed the business of graphic design, but ultimately, you get what you pay for My face went pale with fear and I didn’t know what to say. I was staring at Tailorbrands.com ...
2015 Interactive Awards Winners Announced
June 4, 2015
Cineplex Digital Solutions won an Interactive Award in 2014 for "Performance Court Video Wall," in the Experimental/Artistic category Today is the day! We're happy to announce the winners of the 2015 Interactive Awards! Our team of judges ha ...
So Fresh, So Clean
May 4, 2015
Valentine's Day campaign for 7-Eleven Whether in a linen factory or on the Palais, ad agency 123w scrubs the traditional agency model in favour of a tidy new approach In little over a year, One Twenty Three West (123w) went from operating out of an ...
2015 Design Awards Winners Announced
April 20, 2015
The results are in for the 2015 Design Awards and we hope you get the rush of seeing your name included in the list of winners! Our panel of ten esteemed judges (see above, and access the full list here) spent days poring over the digital entries ...
This Book Is Not a Toy. Except It Kinda Is...
April 8, 2015
Just like the eponymous exhibition before it, the new editorial retrospective of This is Not a Toy is a feat of mammoth proportions. The 448-page book, created by Toronto’s Blok Design in a follow-up to its exhibit design of This is Not a Toy at T ...
Creative Directions: RGD's Top 10
March 18, 2015
Emerging professionals learn how to benefit from criticism, stand out to employers and build strong portfolios at RGD’s annual Creative Directions Career Conference THIS SECTION SPONSORED BY On March 6 and ...
Putting the House in Order: The Curling Canada Rebrand
March 3, 2015
Inside Hulse & Durrell's new identity for the national sport assocation Curling Canada If there were an Olympics for brand identities, this one for Curling Canada would definitely be on the podium. Vancouver-based branding firm ...
2015 Photography & Illustration Awards Winners Announced
February 18, 2015
They're here, they're here! The final results of the 2015 Applied Arts Photography & Illustration Awards are in and we're delighted to present the winners, listed below. If you're still reading this and haven't scrolled down ye ...
Art and Beer. Are We in Heaven?
February 9, 2015
Left: Jackie Besteman, Toronto. Right: James Livitski, Toronto Art and beer — we couldn’t think of a better pairing. And neither could Collective Arts Brewing, it would seem. The Ontario-based craft brewer, which ...
Drawing the Creative Process
February 4, 2015
In the Montreal market where competition between restaurants is high, one stalwart establishment known among foodies for its gastronomic delights needed a way to communicate its creativity to new patrons. Ad and branding agency Carl took o ...
Winners of the 3rd Annual AACE and Young AACE Awards Announced
January 27, 2015
Advertising Young AACE winners (and our Feb/March issue cover models) Shauna Roe (centre left) and Rachel Kennedy (centre right), along with Stuart Payne (left) and Brian Sheppard (right) of Saatchi & Saatchi Well, the night finally ar ...
Shooting Blanks
January 20, 2015
Taking its eye off the brand made Target’s failure in Canada inevitable It’s been less than a week since Target announced that it’s quitting Canada and taking a $7 billion loss in what CNBC’s Jim Cramer called “ ...
McMillan's Festive Threads
December 9, 2014
Call them the anti- ugly Christmas sweaters. Ottawa ad agency McMillan has revealed its 2014 set of holiday cards, which feature four characters each wearing a smartly designed Canadiana sweater. The “Festive Threads ...
If Users Aren't Happy, Nobody's Happy
November 19, 2014
People online want usability more than anything else. Why can’t they count on getting it? In light of all we know about best practices in digital, it’s surprising that we still need to talk about what those best practices are. In ...
Jackpine Creates Sweet Site for SuzyQ
November 17, 2014
Ottawa-based design and strategy studio Jackpine Digital recently rolled out a new website for SuzyQ Doughnuts after completing a new identity for the brand late last year. Susan Hamer opened SuzyQ Doughnuts in Ottawa’s trendy Hintonburg neigh ...
Epic BC Ad Wants You to Find the Wild Within
November 7, 2014
If you’ve been to British Columbia, watching the heart-tugging video “The Wild Within” will make you want to board the first flight back out West. And if you haven’t been there, it’ll leave you planning your next vacation. That’s ju ...
The New Heretics
November 3, 2014
Apathetic. Self-indulgent. Insubordinate. Pick your stereotype — millennials have been called them all. Some young creative entrepreneurs are silencing naysayers with successful shops and a heady approach to business that may be different, but not ...
A GUIDE TO THE 2014 Creative Schools Expo
October 29, 2014
The annual Creative Schools Expo returns for its fifth showing November 17-18, 2014 (9:00 am to 3:00 pm) Artscape Daniels Spectrum 585 Dundas Street East Toronto, ON Admission: Free This two-day event is Canada's only expo designed t ...
Mixing Things Up with Grand Marnier
October 24, 2014
JWT Canada recently created a youthful new online film to knock Grand Marnier off its dusty, out-of-reach shelf in your parents’ liquor cabinet and into the hands of millennial males. “It’s a really fun project when you take an old brand t ...
On the Mainstreaming of Scam
October 20, 2014
The old rules no longer apply, which would explain why advertising is ignoring them If you’re an ambitious advertising person, there’s a good chance you owe a vote of thanks to the late Grace Hopper. Grace Hopper was a pioneering computer s ...
What Does Your Future Self Look Like?
October 1, 2014
Ever wonder what you might look like 20 years from now? The guessing is over with the cool new #FutureSelf campaign created by a trifecta of creative powerhouses: telecom company Orange, its lead ad agency Publicis Conseil, and Toronto-bas ...
Beehive Design Launches Novella Magazine
September 24, 2014
Photo by Jessie Lau Beehive Design can add another line to its already-stacked resume with the publication of Toronto’s newest style and culture magazine, Novella. A brainchild of the team at Beehive, the fledgling publication recently ho ...
Q&A with Design Firm Art & Mechanical
September 5, 2014
The newly minted Art & Mechanical breaks into Toronto's design scene with a tough-as-nails promo video and a seriously cool approach to business Watch out, Toronto — there’s a new design agency in town. Ad industry vets David Adams and A ...
Of Brand Cowards and Missed Opportunities
September 2, 2014
When the City of Toronto and Publicis recently pulled their effective anti-littering ads, they allowed brand owners to take control of the conversation Last week we noticed that the City of Toronto, in response to the negative reactions o ...
Arctic Edge
September 2, 2014
Nunavut illustrator, motion designer and woodworker Jonathan Wright tells stories of life (way) north of 60 “It’s easy to feel isolated,” Iqaluit illustrator Jonathan Wright tells me over a somewhat crackly phone line. As t ...
2014 GDC National Scholarship Winners
August 25, 2014
Who won this year's awards? We discuss project design with the winners and honourable mentions Young talent is something we actively promote at Applied Arts, which is why every year we partner with the Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC) to fund a ...
Identity Crisis
July 30, 2014
Has the web created irresponsible logo design? To say the Internet has profoundly impacted the modern graphic design industry is an understatement. No other force has so radically changed what we do and how we do it — except perhaps t ...
Killer Bee Design by Hired Guns
July 23, 2014
Hired Guns Creative has done it again. The award-winning, Nanaimo-based branding and design studio, which creates packaging for wineries, breweries and distilleries, shared with us their latest work for Wayward Distillation House. The brand ...
On Advertising's Self Esteem Issues
July 21, 2014
Last week, I got an interesting flyer from Bed Bath & Beyond. The flyer is devoted to helping university students outfit their dorm rooms for the coming school year. As such, most of its audience is too young to recognize the source fo ...
2014 Student Awards Winners Announced
July 7, 2014
Matteo Capaldi's winning image from our 2013 Student Awards Our dedicated Student Awards judges had their work cut out for them this year! In 2014, we saw a big jump in the number of entries and entrants than in previous years. Students fro ...
Man on Fire
July 4, 2014
Benjamin Von Wong (n.): Content creator, visual engineer, photo manipulator, media strategist, documentarian, fire breather, scuba diver. See also: self-taught wunderkind Last winter, Benjamin Von Wong was at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Li ...
