Every year for 13 years we have made custom gingerbread cookies for our clients and friends at Christmas time. The cookies are a small thank you from all of us at K9 for making this year so wonderful. For many of those years, yours truly turned our family kitchen at home into a K9 gingerbread factory! And for many of those years I had to double the recipe as our beloved dog Caesar (RIP) would help himself to a few cookies left out for cooling.

Today we enlist local talent and St.Clair Ave West baker LEAH’S to help us with our mission. This year’s cookies are as yummy as ever and wrapped in a custom wooden box (yes the K9 wood theme is back) and lovingly wrapped for our friends to enjoy.

We love Christmas and we love to support local business. Don’t forget to stop by St Clair Ave West if you are ever in town. We are a growing and mighty neighbourhood and we’d love to see you all.

We wish you all the happiest of holiday seasons!

• Uses the left hand “real estate” to ensure optimal eye movement down the cover
• Adopts a color scheme that is light and fresh to keep the copy from getting too heavy
• A clean white background also helps keep it form looking too cluttered
• Bullets help to separate secondary benefit lines
• Boxes and underline techniques also help the eye manoeuvre the page.

This SIP packs 114 pages of real estate investor info. Check it out on the stands in the new year.

“We’re very excited about the MagNet redesign. It’s bold, cool and vibrant, and provides the perfect backdrop for the conference,” says Barbara Zatyko, General Manager of MagNet. “The team at K9 Design have created an arresting visual identity that conveys the energy and focus of North America’s biggest magazine event. The design says, ‘focus forward,’ and that’s exactly what will define MagNet 2012.”

The logo reflects the future-focused evolution of Canada’s magazines. With its spinning circular motif, the image suggests the change that is a part of growth, while the strong vibrant colour accents embody the excitement MagNet generates annually among delegates and in the industry in general. This early unveiling is sure to be met with anticipation by magazine professionals across the country.

Here’s what Norm had to say…

“We strived to capture the chaotic pace and constant moving that is publishing today while also defining MagNet as the eye of the storm, the calm where our industry can gather.”

Publishing is no longer just about ink and paper so we wanted to stray from the more obvious visuals and instead focus on the abstract representations that capture the essence rather than just the product we produce. There was a time when publishing was one of the sexiest careers you could be in and as far as we’re concerned it still is!”

The project scope includes: identity development, web site re-skin, event program, advertisements, web buttons, PowerPoint slides, event signage and on-site needs

Mark your calendar now for June 5-8 2012. We’ll see you there.

The makeover refreshed the entire magazine, creating a new logo, cover and interior layout. “East Coast Living now has a stronger look and feel and our new contemporary design is catering to our core group of readers but also to younger, urban readers, which is very exciting,” says publisher Patty Baxter.

The new design has also strengthened ad revenues for the magazine. Overall ad revenues have grown by 20 per cent since 2009. Full-page ads increased from 19 per cent in 2009 to 26 per cent in 2011. The amount of national advertisers grew from 15 per cent in 2009 to 27 per cent in 2011. “The redesign has helped energize our ad sales,” Baxter says. “It has built interest and buzz about the magazine, as people see that it’s a modern, sophisticated publication.”

Our founder and creative director, Norm Lourenco, is amazed with the results. “For East Coast Living to have accomplished this level of success proves that when you have the right message married with the correct visual language, it creates a powerful product,” he says. “We couldn’t be happier for the great team at East Coast Living.” – to see a little more on the process and how we came to this design, check out our slide presentation given to the Atlantic Magazine Association where we talked about the importance of magazine redesign and the concepts presented to East Coast Living – on slide share.

A Big shout out to our sponsors on this makeover. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Cover consultation from Circ3
Printing from Ironstone Media
Printing from Annex Printing
Digital Publishing from NXT Book Media
Stock photography from iStock

Traffic on East Coast Living’s redesigned website, launched last year in conjunction with the makeover, has doubled, with a 232 per cent increase in unique visitors and a 214 per cent increase in total visits.

Photo caption: From left: East Coast Living editor Janice Hudson, K9 Design creative director Norm Lourenco, East Coast Living graphic designer Gwen North and East Coast Living production coordinator Dana Edgar.

Their launch cover 2010

Watch for the next issue due out at Christmas – it has a wicked new look.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-John McCrae

]]> http://www.k9designco.com/blog/2011/11/remember/feed/ 0 http://www.k9designco.com/blog/2011/10/junior-designer-wanted/ http://www.k9designco.com/blog/2011/10/junior-designer-wanted/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:41:00 +0000 jennifer http://www.k9designco.com/blog/?p=1281 Thanks for all your super interest. We have a filled our role and added to our pack! But check back often – you never know when we’ll be looking again.

Cheers!

WE ARE HIRING!

You are a talented and savvy designer who wants a great team and lots of different projects to work on. See the RGD posting here.

You’ll work right beside the creative director, the art director and the studio dog.

You’ll work on cool concepts and other stuff of the greatest excellence, but we’ll be honest… We also have lots of production work: clipping paths, edits, image research and photoshop work (but it could be of Brad and Angelina)! Our studio is small, fun and in the heart of the newly revitalized St. Clair Ave. West neighbourhood, home of the Artscape Wychwood Barns (cool space), the Stockyards (awesome lunches) and the Rushton (wicked outdoor patio for happy hour).

In return we are looking for: a hard worker (we have fun but we work hard and your days will fly by) strong Adobe CS InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator skills; and recent graphic design school education. Details, and care matter to us and to our clients so impeccable attention to detail is a must. You are organized, work independently and can hit the ground running. Magazine layout experience is a definite plus and will get our attention! Must have at least 1 year of studio experience. Fooseball skills, although not a must, are a definite plus.

As much as we would love to talk to you all, please respect the process and send us your resume by e-mail. We’ll be in touch as soon as we can. Only those of interest will be contacted.

As head creative on the campaign, what better way to sell magazines than to show as many of them as you can in a creative and catchy way. Our brilliant art director came up with the idea of the “Waterfall” that allows for many titles and covers to be showcased without doing the same old, same old. The concept was intended to give a sense of scale to the number of titles available and the 3D look intended to give the ad extra punch.

Peter Lebensold, Canada’s famous DM writer, commented this…

“I just last night saw the ad you created for Magazines Canada (the monster “Get Your Free Magazine Subscription Today”), which replaces the As-Canadian-as-Poutine (and other distinctive Canuck terms) that I did for them two years ago, and I wanted to say …

… it’s great.

Further evidence of what great design can do to perk up copy. Good work!”

Thanks Peter!