Awards of Merit

Branding Project by Tourism Toronto 

The goal of this project was to create a unified brand for use across the corporate, consumer and business events spheres of the organization, and a visual identity that would be seen as uniquely and identifiably Toronto. One logo was created that could be adapted by each department in order to unify all branded collateral with a consistent look, feel and message. With a summer start and a fall launch, a major challenge for this project was limited time, which was addressed through teamwork and a ‘divide and conquer’ approach. Creating the new branding internally saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the response across the organization and from its partners has been resoundingly positive.

‘Bradley Walters Journeys' Brochure by Goliger's Travel Plus  

The yearly brochure for ‘Bradley Walters Journeys’ is released every September, and all other marketing material flows around the same branding and style—creating a new brand “package” from year to year. All material is created to meet the needs of the average ‘Bradley Walters Journeys’ traveler, the demographic of which is over the age of 65. For the 2016/2017 brochure, this meant upping the font size to address the lack of legibility in previous issues. The increased font size reduced the amount of space remaining for photography and stylized design. Adding patterns and custom titles for each journey helped ensure that the brochure would maintain the brand’s tone and feel, despite the reduced space. A sidebar was also added to make it easier to find key information for each journey, including physical demand, duration and departure dates. The result is a successful brochure that stays true to the branding and demographic of ‘Bradley Walters Journeys’. The2016/2017 brochure has had the most positive reviews from clients and agents to date.

Library Marketing Look by The City Of Mississauga 

The Mississauga Library lacked a cohesive or consistent look across their marketing materials. The objective of this project was to design a marketing look that would reflect the new Mississauga city brand while also incorporating the library’s Future Directions research document. Developed in 2014, this document was created as a guide for the library’s evolution, to maintain relevance among residents. Learnings from this research helped the team identify a key marketing expression: “Discover, Learn, Create”. To accommodate the number and variety of marketing pieces required by the library throughout the year, a grid system was developed to help manage consistency in look and feel, without being too predictable. Clean, simple geometry complemented the photos highlighting the library’s stunning public spaces.

Rebrand by TVOKids 

To maintain the Ontario public’s existing trust in the TVO Kids brand, the new branding couldn’t stray too far from the audience’s expectations of the broadcaster. The main TVO wordmark was combined with a bright, happy kids’ color palette. The font for display and web copy was designed to address early learners and those with learning disabilities. Likewise, some characters were adjusted to conform with Canadian early learning character standards. A unique set of icons was developed to cover science, nature, art and math. For TVO Kids events, stages and activation booths were developed, featuring learning activities, wall graphics and custom activity books. For broadcast, the creative team and the broadcast production team worked with an external agency to create interstitials for TV– guiding them through the very strict modes of conduct for the characters. Custom sequences were written and animated, and really brought the personality of the new brand to life on broadcast. As with the adult brand, the TVO Kids brand was designed to adapt to different environments with consistent color, font, icon and image use, rather than conforming to strict brand guidelines, to create a dynamic, evolving brand.

Branding by Alzheimer's Australia VIC 

Alzheimer’s Australia Vic is committed to inspiring the creation of dementia-friendly communities, and encouraging the inclusion and sup-port of people living with dementia. This helps enable and empower them to achieve a high quality of life with meaning, purpose and value. This message is reflected through the organization’s physical and social environment, as well as its print and digital graphic design. Transitioning content for new patients from multiple brochures into a single booklet has enabled counselling staff to use one comprehensive document when meeting with clients for the first time, as this can often be distressing and confusing for patients. The Bequest Information Pack was also redesigned to provide a more welcoming information package with materials relevant to individual clients, creating opportunities for more meaningful engagement. The suggested branding was also showcased in their 2013Annual Report with individual stories that helped bring warmth and positivity to it and added a humanizing tone to what can be a dry document.

'I am Different Like You' Campaign by The Regional Municipality of York

The goal of this region-wide promotional print and online campaign was to start a conversation about what it means to be inclusive and work toward a common vision of diversity among York Region staff and community members, while encouraging sign-ups for‘ diversity dialogue’ sessions. A unique two-poster, side-by-side format with the tagline “I am different like you” helped highlight the campaign message, with the design adjusted to fit various website, social media and e-blast requirements. A social media frame was produced to encourage participants to share photos and promote the campaign using the hash-tag #Inclusive YR. A dedicated campaign page(york.ca/Inclusive YR) offered session information and a feed of social media posts. A PowerPoint slideshow was also developed to support the diversity dialogue sessions. Having the project championed by the senior management team and collaborating closely with internal clients helped accelerate the project through a demanding internal approval process. Accessibility was taken into consideration in order to comply with‘ Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act’ (AODA) guide-lines. The result was increased website traffic during the campaign, major social media reach and engagement, and increased participation for internal and external focus groups.

2016 Humber Showcase: 'Wave of Excellence' Branding by Humber College 

Showcase is an annual event that celebrates professional development at Humber College. Alternating each year between being hosted at Humber’s Lakeshore campus or North campus, this massively popular and well-at-tended event is an incubator for collaborative design and offers a chance for faculty and staff to share their passions and their unique approaches to education. The goal was to create an inspiring and relevant theme for the event that would extend across communications, workshops, signage and online sign-up forms/schedules. The theme ‘Wave of Excellence’ references keynote speakers Mark Tewksbury (Gold Medal Champion) and Debbie Muir (award-winning Olympic coach). Under this theme, the team designed a striking conference logo, a user-friendly website, an advertising display and directional wayfinding signage. As part of Humber College’s values, sustainable signage was created for the conference by repurposing previously used foam products, photo frames and magnets to create reusable mobile directional signage. The ‘Wave of Excellence’ website, email communiqué and table top tent cards helped maintain consistent messaging throughout the Humber College community in the weeks leading up to the conference. The conference was a huge success with over600 participants.

'Critical Uncovered' Video by Great-West LifeCo 

In 2015, a research study found that Canadians understood the risk that serious illness would have on their physical, financial and mental well-being. Despite this understanding, they wouldn’t necessarily be pre-pared for a serious diagnosis such as cancer, a heart attack or stroke. An animated series of videos was proposed to increase awareness about the importance of critical illness insurance, a relatively new product in the industry. Conveying a complex message in a light-hearted, relatable and easy-to-understand manner presented a challenge for the team, who would usually convey these messages using statistics in an infographic. The choice was made to tell the story using character animation, to help create a friendly tone for the viewer. As thecriticaluncovered.ca website was outsourced, the video was created in consultation with the external team to ensure the creative remained consistent. When posted to the Freedom55 Financial Facebook page, the video reached over 14,000users –with 3,300 views and over 270 likes, comments or shares by individual users in under 24 hours. It is still the most successful post in the page’s history with nearly60,000 impressions.

'Chatelaine Gets Digital' Campaign by Rogers 

This campaign emphasizes the four pillars of Chatelaine, specifically for the digital edition: food, style, health and home. The magazine’s photographic style brings the content to life through bold and beautiful design elements, with a focus on human interactivity. Chatelaine’s digital app was promoted through ads in multiple formats, including print, tablet, standard web units and several televised spots which aimed to help users become familiar with the application and learn how to use it. Collaboration within the internal Rogers team was extremely successful, creating a cohesive concept that worked equally well across broadcast, print and digital platforms. The campaign successfully increased overall engagement and awareness of the Chatelaine tablet app, which saw a boost in downloads through the ‘Next Issue’ plat-form. In addition to this, the campaign received tremendous consumer feedback.

Craft Beer POV by Deloitte 

This point-of-view document for Deloitte was created to target the British Columbia (B.C.) craft brewery industry. The goal was to reach craft brewers and provide insight on how they might acquire the funding and support they would need for growth and expansion. A visit to a local craft brewery led to a greater understanding of the culture of this type of business. Placing a growler on the cover of the document helped highlight knowledge of the audience’s industry. The document provided information about comparable craft beer markets - including breakdown of the percentage of alcohol in craft beer versus other beer; craft beer sales figures; the number of breweries per capita; and the five-year compound annual growth rate for each province and state. This information was conveyed using an info-graphic with beer taps that illustrated the statistics. Craft beer styled icons and beer-themed imagery were used throughout the document to maintain a look and feel that would speak specifically to the target audience.