This post is published extremely late, but better late than never. I knew this post would turn into a multi post project, so I kept pushing it back until I had enough time to really share the whole FITC experience with you.

When I started my blog last year, the first post was a video recap of FITC Toronto 2010. At the time, I didn’t have the money or the vacation time to attend and I regretted it. Sure there would be other FITC’s and other design events but I missed the chance to see 2 of my most influential designers in once place: James White of Signalnoise and Scott Hansen of ISO50. So I said next year, I’m going.

A year lapped pretty quickly and my buddy Francois Hoang of Aoiro Studio was asking me if I’m joining him at FITC this year. Initially I was disappointed that I couldn’t afford the $700 ticket, so I said I couldn’t go. Then I got a tweet from Colin Oakes that Shawn Pucknell, the founder of FITC happened to be looking to give out free tickets to bloggers who were willing to liveblog the event. One quick email and score, I’m in!

So it was off to Toronto for FITC. I was lucky enough that my good pal Giulio at work lent me his iPad so I could cover the event, since I only have a desktop at home. My best friend Wesley gave me a ride to Toronto on his way back to Owen Sound from a visit to Montreal, and my little bro let me crash in his cramped downtown Toronto apartment for almost a week. Super Friends, assemble!

So the event itself was amazing. I was excited to see the presentations and be blown away by the design jedis that were on the card to present. The first presentation was the Rainbowman himself: Signalnoise. I had taken my “reserved for live-blogger” seat which was a nosebleed seat all the way to the far right of the stage. It was selected because I would have access to a power cord. Then I got a text from Francois: “We have a Signalnoise cheering section in the front row.” The iPad was fully charged, so I jumped to the front and sat with François Hoang, Drew Gilchrist and my go-to web guy: Colin Oakes. Most of us had seen James at a design event organized solely by François called Montreal Meets. So it was cool to relive it again with the same group of people.

James White of Signalnoise, Photo Credit to Jackie Brown.

Back to the Future II, by James White

James’ presentation was called Back to the Future II. The theme was how rich experiences from his childhood shape his work and influences as a designer. Working to create things he thought were cool his whole life keeps him excited about his projects. His presentations are always a mix of insight and humour, it was really sweet that his parents were in the crowd since they were a big part of the presentation. Teachers with their nose out of joint would approach Mr. and Mrs. White with concerns that their son James was drawing too much in class and that had to stop. He was a distraction to himself and to others. To which they replied, we will not tell our child to stop drawing.

After the show, James handed out limited prints of the Hobo with a Shotgun poster and shook hands with everyone and smiled for pictures and cracked jokes. After the crowd had moved on, we met up with James to catch up since we last saw him at Montreal Meets. We all then made our way to the main stage to catch the next big presenter of Day 1: The insanely talented and potentially insane in the general sense guys at MK12.

Shaun Hamontree of MK12, Photo Credit to Jackie Brown.

How Do You Turn This Thing On?, by Radatz and Hamontree of MK12

I’m not a motion guy, so I wasn’t familiar with MK12 going in this presentation, but I’d leave an MK12 fan. Obviously I must have had my head in the sand, not knowing who these MK12 guys were. Ben Radatz and Shaun Hamontree took the stage to a very charged crowd. I felt a little embarrassed that I had no point of reference for this presentation. Everyone I ran into was anxious for their presentation. Ben and Shaun introduced themselves, crack some good jokes and played the FITC intro video they created for this year’s event. It was a dark twist on the classic “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” video popular at drive-in movie theatres about 25 years ago. I’d rather not spoil the details of the video so feel free to check it out!

FITC Toronto 2011 Titles from FITC on Vimeo.

Again, I’m not a motion guy. But I highly recommend checking out their work and if you have to chance to see them speak, don’t miss out. This concludes part 1 of my FITC Toronto 2011 recap. Part 2 should be up sometime soon.

PS Thanks to jackie Brown for sending me the high res shots from the FITC Awards show!