Francesca Roh Web Design Blog: Fall Interactive Studio Tour

D A Y O N E

Thursday, October 14th - 9:00am

Art Gallery of Ontario

317 Dundas Street West

Toronto, Ontario M6K 3P6

MacLaren McCann

ABOUT MacLaren McCann

Toronto Office:President & CEO, MacLaren McCann Canada
E-mail: doug.turney@maclaren.com
Web site: http://maclaren.com/
Contact: 416.594.6000
Address: MacLaren McCann Canada 10 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5J 2S3
Capabilities

Branding & Design: BRANDID
Video Production & Broadcast; Edge Productions
Media Planning; M2Universa
Design & Production; McGill Design + Studi
Customer Engagement; MacLaren Momentum
Relationship & Digital Marketing; MacLaren MRM
Healthcare; Torre Lazur McC

PRESENTATION

Mike, Vice President, Creative Director
John, Creative Director
Canada's oldest ad agency
they have a CREATIVE COUNCIL to review everything. They combined their creative teams in an open space to work together
(i.e. the Cheverlet team or the Xbox team vs just developers or just designers)

WORK

BULK CAMPAIGN: (15 creatives)
based on what is said on the Twitter page - aggregatedfeedback
TIFF (during): to get people to vote - TIFF Insider and App for Blackberry
hired a gossiper to drive around in a cadillac and look at the stars + a FLICKER page
HALO 3 - campaign adventure for Blackberry
GM: The Cruise (documentary - not scripted)
Macleans Campaign

TIPS

BE A CLEVER BASTARD:

Love what you do
Work Hard (instead of 3 concepts, do 5!)
Be a sponge / always absorbing and thinking
Never settle!

Have a strong Linked In Profile, connect it to your portfolio

Lamin Illustratrions

ABOUT Lamin Illustratrions

Website: laminmartin.com
E-mail: lm@laminmartin.com
Fields by Lamin Illustration & Design: http://vimeo.com/7616622
Current: Now has his own freelancing business
Previews: Worked in a corporate company, then as a greeter at Sears before deciding to do his own thing

WORK

Illustrated Art Books - dragon race of people based on classic renaissance paintings
With these books, you need to show how you problem solves visually, and also you must explain your image as a story (concept art package)

TIPS

Trading time for money (bad job) vs trading your ideas for money
Comfort and growing don't go together, that's why it's called "growing pains"
Shows his work at the FanExpo, at the Gladstone, "What are you looking at bar.com", Wizard World, SanDiego ComiCon
Really good print shop = gorillaprinting (digital)
INSPIRTATION: Alan Lee

GRIP LTD

ABOUT GRIP LTD

Web site: http://www.griplimited.com/
Contact: 416.340.7111
Address: 179 John Street Toronto, ON M5T 1X4
Smart seasoned people get to better ideas faster now, take those individuals from every discipline-and put them under one roof. And what you get is amazing ideas unparalleled efficiencies big cost savings, and, yes, better business results.
Studio has a slide and open space concept

PRESENTATION

Jacob, Director of International production
Looking for innovative, interesting people, high performance creative people
Everything is integrated
An Art Director first needs to be a good designer
Transparency, Communication of ideas - they move ideas quickly

TIPS

Be memorable and noticed
Demonstrate passion beyond your work
Be curious and meddle - be interested in every aspect (writing, music, photos)
"It's not what you know, it's who you know"
FITO - monthly interactive user group (basement at Kensington Market - about 30 ppl a month)
Your work should be as good as the work where you are applying
Conceptual ideas tied to business objectives
Try to be on par with what's being done in the industry
Be interesting as a person
What's YOUR story

IDEACOUTURE

ABOUT IDEACOUTURE

Web site: http://www.ideacouture.com/
Contact: 1.647.827.0412
Send a Message: info@ideacouture.com
Address: 488 Wellington St. West Suite 100 Toronto M5V 1E3
Idea Couture is a strategic innovation and experience design firm. We partner with clients to uncover uncommon ideas that will advance business goals, create shareholder value and leverage social technologies to transform enterprises. We bring together the analytical capability and financial competency of a strategic consultancy, the customer empathy of a research and design firm, and the creativity and technological capability of an interactive agency.

TAXI

ABOUT TAXI

Web site: http://taxi2.taxi.ca/
Contact: 416.598.4750
E-mail: newbusiness@taxi.ca,  pr@taxi.c
Address:49 Spadina Avenue Suite 403 Toronto, Ontario M5V 2J1

WORK

Sugarstreak - youtube game that is interactive - Koodoo's client (social media campaign) #1 most viewed video and #2 most subscribed video when it came out
TELUS - "your status is epic" (epic.telusmobility.com)
westjet.com was redesigned by them

GOOD IDEA

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENT BETWEEN AN INTERACTIVE DESIGNER AND A WEB DESIGNER

MIGHTY

ABOUT MIGHTY

Web site: http://mighty.ca/
Contact: 416.927-3316
E-mail: Jon Toews - Creative Director jon.toews@mighty.ca
Their process:
DEFINE > DESIGN > DEPLOY > MEASURE > OPTIMIZE
They are moving away from flash and towards HTML 5

WORK

Makemighty.ca (self promo piece)
A name generator
rethinkromp.com - create a superhero

TIPS

Check out TUMBLR and other SM sites
Be active in the space (net), they look you up and want to find you ((linkedin, blog, online sties)
Some SITES - zeroviews (blog), Mashbull, techcrunch

BLAST RADIUS

ABOUT BLAST RADIUS

Web site: http://www.blastradius.com/
Contact: 416.214.4220
E-mail: careers@blastradius.com
Address: 46 Spadina Ave. 5th Floor M5V 2H8
Founded in 1996
They are a strategic digital agency, media planning and buying, search marketing, digital advertising
Platforms: design, usability, content management, localizing, e-commerce, analytics, optimization
Competencies: social media planning, sm monitoring, seeding, outreach, Facebook / youtube / twitter

D A Y T W O

Friday, October 15th - 9:00am

WIDEawake Liberty Studios

171 East Liberty Street, Suite 310

Toronto, Ontario M6K 3P6

ONE METHOD

ABOUT One Method

Web site: http://onemethod.com/
Contact: 416.649.0180
E-mail: ideas@onemethod.com
Address: 135 Liberty Street, Suite 201Toronto, ON M6K 1A7

DIGITAL + DESIGN = ONEMETHOD

DIGITAL:
websites
ads (banner ads) - don't do this too much
mobile media - apps, nokia (obi)
social media - hobnob (interactive agency - media strategy) then blogs, backgrounds for twitter etc
digital content - video work, online, online stores
motion design - integrated into sites and videos
DESIGN:
branding
ads
print design
interior design - they designed their office (wow) and http://www.lucienrestaurant.com
strategy
curriculum - training for web apps

TIPS AND KNOWLEDGE FROM THE GREATS

Resumes: You're creative. Be creative.
- make it look awesome (you have 2 minutes to make a first impression)
Interviews (dos and don'ts): DOs
- make your portfolio website the best website you can make
SITE (50%)
- presentation!
- brief / rationale
- talk about the brief you were given, or talk about why you did what you did.
- you need to be able to SELL your work
YOU (50%)
- First 5 minutes of an interview is KEY (the handshake, your look, how you present yourself)
- speak intelligently
- no suit / no tshirt
- take comments about your work with a grain of salt
YOU ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR WEAKEST PIECE
- if it's not fantastic, take it out

TBWA @ WIDEawake Liberty Studio

ABOUT TBWA @ WIDEawake Liberty Studio

Web site: http://www.tbwa-toronto.com/
Contact: 416.260.6600
E-mail: careers@tbwa-toronto.com
Address: 10 Lower Spadina Ave. Toronto, ON M5V 2Z2
TBWA\Toronto (www.tbwa-toronto.com) creates Disruptive ideas that help drive growth by making brands famous for clients, including ABSOLUT, Apple, Infiniti, Mars, Nissan, Petro-Canada and Visa. As a top-ten, worldwide marketing communications firm, TBWA\ Toronto's industry-leading Media Arts talent covers paid, earned, owned and created media. Recent awards include "Best International Network of the Decade" from Advertising Age in 2010. Fast Company magazine placed TBWA 24th on its 2009 list of "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies" and as an Innovation All-Star in 2010.

Teehan + Lax studio

ABOUT Teehan + Lax studio

Web site: http://www.teehanlax.com/
Contact: 416 340 8666
Twitter: @teehanlax (twitter)
Address:109 Atlantic Ave. Suite 202 Toronto, ON, Canada M6K 1X4
Our expertise is in defining and designing customer experiences in the digital channel.