Recently the Government of British Columbia presented one of our valued clients with its 2011 WelcomeBC Day Award, in recognition of their innovative website developed by Yours Truly, the talented team here at Industrial Brand.

But never mind about us….here’s what they do that makes them special. The Immigrant Employment Council of BC (IEC-BC) provides a unique service to the community, connecting employers with motivated and skilled global talent, in a way that hasn’t been done before. Through www.tapintotalent.ca, prospective employers now have direct access to a wealth of labour market resources, including opportunities to connect with a pool of highly skilled immigrant talent.

After thoroughly understanding IEC-BC’s needs, we designed their site to be easy to use and visually-pleasing, but also to capitalize on a few key areas like highlighting a job-matching service with a database of hundreds of pre-screened, job-ready immigrant candidates, as well as the ability to post job openings at no cost. Everyone wins (and we don’t just mean awards!). We are proud to have worked on this project with a client that is a purveyor of positive, progressive change in the community.

Check out the IEC-BC case study in our portfolio or visit their website to read more about this amazing organization and all that they do.

CreativeMornings is being brought to Vancouver, by our very own Mark Busse.

CreativeMornings is a breakfast lecture series started in New York by Tina Roth Eisenberg (@SwissMiss) for creative types happening the first Friday of each month. Each event is FREE of charge (thanks to sponsor support), and includes a 20 minute talk, with the added bonus of a proper hot breakfast and coffee.

Events in mornings don’t normally work for me as they tend to run from 8–9am (I’m a busy guy and mornings are normally crazy taking my daughter to daycare) but CreativeMornings/Vancouver is from 8:30–10am, so not even the parents among us have an excuse to miss this inaugural event (September 2, at W2 Media Café).

Logistics aside, Stewart Butterfield (the co-founder of Flickr and named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world) will be talking and telling his story, followed by a  20 minute group discussion. This is going to be a very engaged and rare opportunity to see such a speaker in Vancouver and in such an intimate setting (and remember it’s FREE). The tickets will be released on August 29th and are limited to 150 seats (register at: http://vancouvercreativemornings.eventbrite.com on Monday, August 29th).

It’s awesome that Vancouver’s creative community is getting the credit it deserves and thanks to Mark for bringing this event to our city.

For more information read the article in Design Edge or visit www.creative mornings.com

UPDATE: At precisely 11am on Monday, August 29th 150 tickets for CreativeMornings/Vancouver’s first event became available to the public. By 11:02:50, less than three minutes later, they were completely sold out, with 130 disappointed people on the waiting list. The lesson? Vancouver’s creative community is hungry for this sort of event, and if you want tickets for the next one, set a reminder alarm and be ready!

WHERE

A couple years ago we helped our favourite Izakaya, a Japanese tapas-like restaurant called Hapa Izakaya, rebuild their online presence with a new website. The ensuing years saw more expansion to other locations, and to launch their new, upscale Japanese restaurant, they came back to us.

IDEAS

Unsure if the new concept should be an extension of the existing brand, or break entirely free from it, the client needed our objective opinion to move forward, and the clock was ticking on opening day. Ultimately, though the concept was to be more a sophisticated dining experience with a different targeted clientele, we felt that the Hapa Umi brand should leverage the tremendous equity they already enjoy with the Hapa Izakaya brand.

Working from that foundation, we took original Japanese artwork for a new, more refined Umi ‘chop’ and combined it with new typography based on the Hapa Izakaya wordmark. The predominantly white on black colour scheme was retained along with the addition of grey.

Research on fine dining revealed a tendency to showcase food rather than environments. Photography for Hapa Umi would follow this model, while for the more casual Izakayas, we would initiate a transition to people and environments to create a greater distinction between the two concepts.

WORK

Once the logo and wordmarks were finalized, we directed menu design and creation, signage and print collateral requirements on a rather tight timeline. The somewhat challenging location in the core business and tourist area downtown means visibility for walk-by traffic is essential. Through on-site assessment, negotiation with the landlord, and close collaboration with the sign vendor we have been able to maximize exposure and retain this brand extension throughout the project. A new website was also designed and built to capture online visits in advance of the opening, and a new more extensive site is planned for a later date.

As predicted based on the success of the current restaurants, Hapa Umi opened on time to large crowds and has not disappointed even the toughest critics.

“We would highly recommend the team at Industrial Brand for any of your branding or website needs. The people at IB are intensely passionate about what they do and it shows in their work. While passion is important, know how and skill are equally important factors that contribute to the finished product. With IB, we feel that this combination gives their clients not only great value but also excellent results. Would we work with IB again?  Absolutely!” – Justin and Lea Ault, Proprietors, Hapa Izakaya and Hapa Umi

The next Likemind Vancouver event will be held at 8am on Friday, April 15th, and hosted by Ethical Bean Café 91315 Kootenay Street (near Boundary & 1st Ave) (Click here for directions).

Free coffee and snacks will be generously provided to those who come early, so come join a group of like-minded creative professionals and start your day with some good conversation over a cup of good coffee.

Remember to confirm your RSVP on the Facebook group page so we can estimate how many people are coming (sometimes more than 50 attendees). If you don’t use Facebook, you can join our LinkedIn Group, or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on upcoming events.

Invite a friend, and bring your travel mug. See you there!

PS – If you bring your camera along, please upload your shots and share them with the 70 other Likemind groups in cities around the world! Also, please consider sharing your appreciate for our host café by posting to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, Urbanspoon, or your personal blog!

There’s something happily surreal about sipping on your morning coffee and reading the newspaper when you stumbled across a story about a client’s success story. Very nice indeed.

A few years ago we designed the logo, brand identity system and website for a proposed state of the art sports training, medicine and therapy complex in Burnaby called The MultiSport Centre of Excellence. After years of delays, the construction has finally begun with a ground-breaking ceremony.

Congratulations to all involved in the project!

The next Likemind Vancouver event will be held at 8am on Friday, January 21st, and hosted by Prophouse Café at 1636 Venables St. (one block west of Commercial Dr) (Click here for directions).

Free coffee and snacks will be generously provided to those who come early, so come join a group of like-minded creative professionals and start your day with some good conversation over a cup of good coffee.

Remember to confirm your RSVP on the Facebook group page so we can estimate how many people are coming (sometimes more than 50 attendees). If you don’t use Facebook, you can join our LinkedIn Group, or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on upcoming events.

Invite a friend, and bring your travel mug. See you there!

PS – If you bring your camera along, please upload your shots and share them with the 70 other Likemind groups in cities around the world! Also, please consider sharing your appreciate for our host café by posting to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, Urbanspoon, or your personal blog!

The next Likemind Vancouver event will be held at 8am on Friday, August 20th and hosted by Kafka’s Coffee & Tea House at 2525 Main Street (at Broadway) (Click here for directions).

Free coffee and snacks will be generously provided to those who come early, so come join a group of like-minded creative professionals and start your day with some good conversation over a cup of good coffee.

Remember to confirm your RSVP on the Facebook group page so we can estimate how many people are coming (sometimes well over 60 attendees). If you don’t use Facebook, you can join our LinkedIn Group, or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on upcoming events.

Invite a friend, and bring your travel mug. See you there!

PS – If you bring your camera along, please upload your shots and share them with the 70 other Likemind groups in cities around the world!

Matt recently wrote a great article about why he was excited about the upcoming Icograda Design Week Vancouver 2010 conference.

This week Icograda released this animated promo video about the theme of Design Currency created by Rethink, Giant Ant Media, Todd Smith Design and Wave Productions—all studios in Vancouver, BC.

The coolest thing for me is that the video is old school flipbook animation, not computer trickery. The production team literally printed and photographed 2,180 custom bills to create the effect. Here are some behind the scenes photos showing how they did it.

Pretty cool work guys—well done!

I believe there is always room for every person to grow, personally and professionally. But as an Art Director (and father of a two year old) my ‘spare’ time for a conference is very limited. I have been in this industry for 15 years and without sounding arrogant, I know a lot about this industry. If I am going to take five days to attend a conference it better be something significant that will make a positive difference for my career. I also want to see speakers who are funny, intelligent and poignant. I have no interest seeing presentations that are nothing more than monotone portfolio overviews with little or no relevance to the conference theme.

So, why should I get excited about Icograda’s Design Week Vancouver being hosted by GDC in April of this year?

Well, there is the fact that it is hosted in the convention centre in my beautiful hometown of Vancouver. An international conference on my doorstep of this calibre (which would normally involve air-flight and hotels adding extra expense) is a wonderful opportunity, I would be a fool not to attend for this reason alone.

I enjoyed watching this presentation recently given by GDC President, Rod Roodenburg, where he said “we don’t have the answers but we have ideas, and so do you. Lets create the value of design together”. That one statement alone inspires me to want to attend this conference. Going to a conference to truly participate and contribute on a global level sounds refreshing.

I am hooked by the theme ‘Design Currency: Defining the Value of Design’. Working in a service-based industry we often bump up against the value of design. How do you put a dollar value to a service for a client? What impact will the completed design work have on your clients business? What parameters does the client use to judge that impact and how does that translate into value for them or their clientele? Also, in a world where you can buy a logo for next to nothing on certain ‘generic logo’ sites, or use a myriad of crowd sourcing sites, how do we educate a client on the value of strategic design and the process behind it?

The conference is an international event organized by Icograda (International Council of Graphic Design Associations), the world body for professional communication design. The conference will host speakers who are all world-class design experts from countries around the globe (Canada, US, France, Denmark, Hong Kong, and India to mention just a few).

I believe many creative designers are multi-disciplined in their thinking but lack the skills to implement these ideas. Personally I am a wanna be architect, interior designer and car designer but unfortunately my buildings would probably collapse and my cars would never start. That being said, I am excited that the speakers at the conference will be from varying disciplines of design with experts from the fields of architecture, industrial design, branding, strategy, and interactive design.

At the same time as the conference there will also be a trade fair where you will get to meet lots of industry suppliers and network with top management from leading design agencies, design media, design students and design educators. Additionally, there will be lots of wonderful printed samples for our greedy design fingers to flip through, admire, critique (“I can’t believe they used that typeface” or “look at that leading”), and to smell the wonders of printed ink (slight personal obsession).

On the Friday the day will be divided into workshops and an education symposium. Thursday night the conference will host the Graphex 2010 awards gala, celebrating and acknowledging the best of Canadian design over the past two years. I attended the 2008 awards gala and was impressed by the whole night (the MC Ze Frank was a hoot, this year it is Debbie Millman). It was an opportunity to connect with my design colleagues and meet admired designers from studios across Canada. Did I mention the cocktail reception and three course plated dinner?

The world has many currencies but the GDC and Icograda felt there was one missing—a ‘design currency’. One that could transcend different economies but could still represent monetary value on a balance sheet. Hence the ‘Design Dollar’ icon used as the conference logo mark. I am intrigued by the logo for the conference. There is a logo for the conference, how cool is that? It has me instantly ask questions. What is this currency? Where is it used? How is it used? What is the value? What is the Canadian Dollar and Design Dollar exchange rate? It acts as a vehicle to start asking questions drawing you in and enrolling you into the topic of the conference. Rather than the conference title set in just Helvetica (as many conference often do), strategy and thought have been put into not just the logo but into other promotional materials and brand elements. I am excited to see the full extent of which this graphic theme will be incorporated throughout the conference and trade fair. I have seen people at local design events recently wearing Design Currency promotional t-shirts that states ‘This shirt is worth 150 Design Dollars’. Inviting people to engage in dialogue about the value of design, actively promoting the conference but more so the topic of the conference. It is truly a great PR campaign.

One of the conference events that I am most keen to attend is the ‘Dinner With a Side of Design”, April 25, 26 & 28. A long table series at Irish Heather (great beer and food) combining local leaders and designers in collaborative conversations focused around the complex themes of sustainability, culture and economics. i have never heard of such an opportunity where my thoughts and ideas would have an actual impact on our city.

I’ve heard that speakers have been encouraged to avoid portfolio presentations in favour of theme-focussed dialogue and that there will be panel discussions and break-out groups. Collectively (speakers and the attendees) will come to conclusions together to include the following: What is the true value of design? How can graphic designers contribute to positive change in the world? What is the impact and value that your design has on the bottom line socially, environmentally, economically and culturally?

By attending this conference I believe the global perspectives learned, relationships made, practical lessons learned will benefit my career (and yours) not only for the next short while but continuously long term.

I encourage you to join me and register online by visiting the design week website www.designweekvancouver.ca.

Happy New Year! The first Likemind event of 2010 is scheduled for 8am, January 15th and will be hosted by W2 Community Arts at the W2 Culture + Media House at 112 West Hastings Street (the Perel building across the street from the fancy new Woodwards building).

Coffee and treats are being provided by Salt Spring Coffee this month, so come join a group of like-minded creative professionals and start your day with some good conversation and a cup of quality, fair trade and organically grown coffee.

Remember to confirm your RSVP on the Facebook group page, invite a friend, and bring your travel mug. See you there!

PS – Can some of you remember to bring a camera and take some updated shots we can share with the nearly 70 other Likemind groups around the world?