This initial concept for this poster came way back in May when I was taking my dog out for the first amazing walk of the summer. The sun was out and it was the first morning where you didn’t need a jacket to go outside. Summer was here. We turned the first block and I could hear a weird chirp that sounded more like a lazer gun than a bird. I looked above the trees and I could see bright red feathers against the sunshine, it was a cardinal. I stopped and admired the pinkish red feathers and then he took off. It felt like a good omen. I’ve read that it can mean an awakening. I’m not usually big into that sort of thing, but it did inspire a rather labor intensive poster.

After quite a few mockups, I realized that the cardinal signifying an “awakening” wasn’t strong enough. I had to look it up quite extensively online, and who knows if it’s even correct. So I ditched the red feathers and changed it for some colours I associate with being lost. Then added a prominent updraft to signify a certain transition in energy, or awakening and tied it together with a loose line from one of my favourite Radio Head songs.

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!

I don’t have a lot of the details yet, but I’ve been invited to attend FITC Toronto as a live blogger. I’ve never been to an event like this so I’m expecting to have a lot to write about during the three days of the event.

In my first blog post ever on this site, I wrote about missing FITC and hoping that I would find myself there in 2011. So this event is like a full circle effect for me. The work put into building and feeding this blog has paid off and allowed me to attend a show I otherwise couldn’t experience. If you’re going to be there leave a comment and let me know.

A special thanks to Shawn Pucknell for the invitation.

Nik Ewing is a designer from California with a talent for creating beautiful cover artwork and strong typographical design pieces. His type treatment is chosen very well and I really enjoy that he doesn’t limit himself to a small list of fonts.

Check out more of Nik’s work at nikewing.com and follow him on twitter.

It’s been awhile since I contributed some new work. Since projects are moving a bit slower than I like, I posted some of my favourite shots from my iPhone using Hipstomatic and Instagram. Enjoy!

Françoise Nielly is a french painter specializing in portraits that combine elements of cubism and abstract painting. Beginning with a subject and colour palette in mind, Françoise begins her her process by applying ubiquitous slabs of colour with her palette knife.

This technique sounds like she would be creating abstract art, but as the colours overlap, the portrait begins to reveal itself. Then she just follows the cues to focus it into a collage of amazing colours.

To view Françoise’s complete gallery and view a demonstration of how she begins her process work visit www.francoise-nielly.com.

I was scanning for some reference shots I could use and came across a site called 500px.com. For anyone unfamiliar with this site, it’s a great source of inspiration. Photographers from around the world upload their work, I think cropping them to 500px. I was first drawn to Konstantin’s profile by his ‘Dancing Among’ photograph. After exploring the rest of his collection, I had found 18 shots that I now had to arrange for today’s post.

When I look at his shots, I feel a sense of isolation in the mass. Konstantin combines many elements to create a sense of desolation. Most photos are of an isolated person or a mass of people walking in formation. The grainy film gives off an imperfect quality to the shots. The scenery is always at night with low light in the middle of snowstorm. In a world without any light, sun or colour: there would be no life. And in this world, the life that does exist is either suffering, or are drones marching in formation.

You can see Konstantin’s complete collection at http://gross.500px.com.

I’ve been a fan of Signalnoise for a couple years now. I was initially drawn by his traditional illustration work found here, but as I explored his gallery a number of great pieces caught my eye. This post is a collection of my favourite works by Signalnoise. They are not ordered in preference.

If this is the first time you see James’ work, I recommend connecting with him. His work is always very strong and he encourages designers to push their work to it’s potential by not limiting your work to projects assigned to you either by client or employer. Go out and find what you want to do and just do it.

With that method, James was able to create some amazing work. It was so successful that he has to keep a close eye on his personal projects to make sure they aren’t used commercially (specifically his Tron poster, which was appropriated illegally on the cover of a Marvel Comic as well as a number of other medias).

James also runs a successful weekly broadcast aimed at sharing the progress of the Signalnoise brand and connecting to his audience of designers with the aim of inspiring them to make smart decisions about their work.

Connect with James at signalnoise.com or by his twitter and facebook.
His broadcasts are Thursdays at 3pm EST at signalnoise.com/live.

With an extensive library of impressive vector work, it’s easy to forget that James White of Signalnoise is also an accomplished artist. I was initially drawn to James’ work by his collection of skull composites. Relying on traditional technique is a great way to ensure that your designs will be unique and keep you from falling into design trends. The technique in these pieces if very impressive, walking the line between hard and soft (soft textures, hard lines, whispie greens contrasted with deep reds).

Connect with James at signalnoise.com or by his twitter and facebook.

I came across Allison’s work the other day and I was amazed by the effectiveness of it’s simplicity. Each of these photographs are very strong on their own, but crossing them over the way Allison takes them to another level.

To view more of Allison’s work check out her site.

I opened my inspiration folder of amazing album work collected over the last year and pulled out these colourful selections. It’s not always easy to use a lot of colour on a piece and still have it come together and speak efficiently as a piece of design. A plan in mind and careful consideration in your colour choices can lead to some beautiful work.

The Miles Davis cover at the bottom is a great example of a great concept and execution of colour. Cool hues emerge from the centre and quickly transition into warm yellows, reds and oranges. When expanded, you reveal they are being contained inside the cool tones that emerged and faded from the centre.

I came across Tim’s work on the ISO50 blog a few weeks back and was blown away by these shots. Having never been to California I could still tell right away that this was a California photographer. The fairytale colours in the air and the sun that’s always either rising or setting are captured in every shot.

Tim not only has an eye for taking exceptional photographs but he’s also able to capture a story in every shot. One of my favourite assignments in high school art class was being given a random photo and then told to write the story behind it. It would be a fun game to play with a few friends at a coffee shop.

You can find more of Tim’s work at navisphotography.com and his flickr.

Tennille Heinonen is an illustrator, painter, graphic designer and photographer from Sudbury Ontario Canada. Her technique is one part traditional illustration and one part digital technique.

In her own words, “I am a die hard fan for Digital Art in every way. I usually start out with sketches, move onto rendering a scanned version of the sketch in Corel Photo-paint and then put it through a myriad of tricks in Photoshop CS3 for finishing touches.”

She cites her major sources of inspiration are Frank Frazetta, Michael Turner, HR Giger, J.Scott.Campbell, Joe Mad, and the talented Adam Hughes. It’s not uncommon to see one of Adam’s works showcased as Tennille’s profile picture on Facebook.

For more info on Tennille and a more extensive gallery visit her DeviantART page.

Lake Taureau from Pete Vassilakos on Vimeo.

Pete Vassilakos is a Montreal filmmaker running a one man film studio, hence his company name “One Man Show Productions”. What I love most about his films is how authentic the mood is when you’re watching his films. You are immediately immersed into the content.

This is a video diary of Pete’s vacation with his good friend Adrian to Lake Taureau. An intimate look into their impromptu escape from the stress of city life. A short film worth watching. Cheers and enjoy!

For the the entire One Man Show Productions collection click here.

Tara is a fashion designer in Montreal and painter in her spare time. She was always a gifted illustrator, but she only began painting about 8 years ago while still in design school. Since then, she’s developed her skills and put together an impressive collection of work. Her paintings depict strong women in beautiful backgrounds. From a distance the colours draw you in, but then it’s the patterns and textures she’s meticulously created in her pieces that leave you speechless.

You can view more of Tara’s work on her website.