Communication Designers of Toronto (Cdot) is a professional association dedicated to the unification and advancement of Canada’s largest design community.

What is Communication Design?

Communication design is a message-driven design discipline that involves the structuring and presentation of verbal and visual content to enable better understanding among people.

Communication designers create and combine all of the necessary elements of modern messaging (concept, text, image, colour or sound) to produce static or animated layouts for print, electronic or three-dimensional applications. They work across and/or specialize in many fields such as branding, marketing, advertising, packaging and publishing. > beyondgraphic.org

Cdot Design Pioneers Exhibit: A Success!

If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development. – Aristotle

Honouring Toronto’s Communication Design Pioneers



Cdot is proud to announce that its inaugural event, Cdot Design Pioneers Exhibit, was an overwhelming success. With attendance of three hundred plus guests, the opening night was a notable event gathering designers from across generations. The opening event and week-long exhibit recognized local veteran designers who helped define a design discipline and some of Canada’s most recognizable brands.

Located at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD), the exhibit featured the design work of Stuart Ash, Hans Kleefeld, Burton Kramer, Laurie Lewis, Clair Stewart, Don Watt and many others for the first time.



Above: Not only was it a rare opportunity to view their work, it was also a unique opportunity to meet some of the pioneers in person such as Ernst Barencher, Don Watt, Ralph Tibbles, Jim Donahue, Louis Fishauf, Hans Kleefeld, Burton Kramer and Stuart Ash. An introduction was given by William Thorsell, Director & CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum.

This is only the first of a series of Cdot events. Our organization will continue to host accessible events that will have a substantial impact on the local design community. As its first event, it was appropriate for Cdot to recognize Toronto’s past designers, because as the tagline of the exhibit suggests, “If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.” – Aristotle

Thanks to all who made the event a success:

Cdot Team
Katie Babcock, Darryl Bank, Brian Donnelly, Elissa Gallai, Errol Saldanha, Randy Van Gerwen, Justin Young

Sponsors
Applied Arts Inc.
Aquent
Colour Innovations Inc.
Creative Niche Inc.
Gottschalk+Ash International
Ontario College of Art & Design
Saldanha Inc.
Steam Whistle Brewing
Thompson Print Management
Umbra Ltd.
Unisource Canada Inc.

Applied Arts magazine features Design Pioneers

Cdot Design Pioneers event corresponds with the Design Feature article in the current issue of Applied Arts magazine which calls attention to local pioneers. Link to PDF of article >

AGO 2008: New Logo, New Building, New Vision

On May 15, 2008, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) unveiled its new logo, a bold new identity that will mark the opening of the newly redesigned gallery by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry.

Created by Bruce Mau Design, the logo’s multiple typefaces and colours are meant to represent light refracting through a prism. This “shimmering” effect is grounded by the black square in the background – representing the juxtaposition between the agility of the new AGO and its tradition as a century-old institution.

Describing the new identity, Mau comments, “The Art Gallery of Ontario is relaunching with a renewed mission to bring art and people together with experiences and spaces that are dynamic yet timeless, popular yet iconic.” He adds, “The new logo is similarly imbued with fluid motion and spontaneity, counterbalanced by stability and legibility.”

Matthew Teitelbaum, Director and CEO of the AGO, believes that the rebranding will signal a new beginning for the AGO, a beginning with a new logo, a new building and a new international identity.

While some believe that this new identity will garner international attention, others believe it is too bold. Although this logo has had mixed reviews, it is interesting to note the trend in rebranding cultural institutions. For example, both the Tate and the MoMA recently rebranded in order to increase their international awareness. While it is easy to critique the logo in isolation, it will be intriguing to see how the brand extends to other applications and how it interacts with the new space in Fall 2008.

The AGO’s brand evolution:
Logos created by various designers/design agencies such as Hans Kleefeld of Stewart & Morrison, Rous & Mann Ltd., and Cooper & Beatty Ltd.

- Katie Babcock

Toronto a Meeting Place?

The name “Toronto” comes from a Huron Indian word meaning “meeting place.” How many of the hundreds of designers in our city (besides those you work with) have you met with lately? It used to be that we met our peers at various production supplier-hosted events. We mingled as the drinks flowed freely. Unfortunately, as print production budgets get slimmer, so do opportunities for meeting other designers (and feasting on d'oeuvres). We can no longer rely on related supplier events to bring us together.

Today, many of us are too tied up with work and wires to realize the importance of peer interaction and the inspiration it can bring. We claim to be “too busy” – with clients, with family, with life. I have heard many designers complain that they are worked so hard (and paid so poorly), that they just don’t have the energy to get involved “after hours” with the elevation of their profession. Seems ironic.

Through my industry research, I have also interviewed many retired designers who told stories of how a smaller Toronto design community would meet regularly to converse over a scotch or two. Through these informal encounters, they talked about who was working on what, which clients didn’t pay and where they wanted to take what was then known as “commercial art”.

Our profession has certainly grown from those days and that growth has brought both positive and negative change. Digital communications have certainly empowered the individual designer and simplified the way we work. But have we lost the simple sense of community that those old timers enjoyed every time they got together to “talk shop”?

The web has brought us much good, but the spam of electronic communications seems to have made us less attentive to the value of our physical world. Personal meetings are a rare occurrence these days... If a designer looking for work asks you to look at their portfolio, do you ask them to email you a PDF instead of meeting with them? It works both ways... Do your prospective clients want to meet you to review your portfolio or do they just want a quick look at your website?

Cdot hopes to make Toronto a “meeting place” once again. By getting the passionate designers out from behind their Macs to interact with their peers, we will bring back the personal rapport that existed in our community.

Cdot is more than a Facebook group, we host free and informal monthly meetings ... face-to-face. Please join us.

- Errol Saldanha

Volunteers Needed!

If you wish to volunteer with Cdot, please send an email to info[at]communicationdesigners[dot]org and include “volunteer” in the subject area.

Privacy Notice: contact information will be used for Cdot communications only (we do not sell or distribute names/email addresses to third parties for any purpose). Cdot respects the privacy of all members and has a zero tolerance policy for spam or any type of aggressive member marketing.

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