To celebrate the upcoming unveiling of their new online look and presence, we helped the AFA launch a contest to find stories of Albertans effected by the arts. After shortlisting nine finalists you can now vote on your favorite over at the contest website.

Recent work includes a number of projects for clients such as the Government of Alberta, Rural Alberta Development Fund, Freewill Shakespeare Festival, Alberta Cancer Foundation, Bowie Pumps, and the City Market Downtown.

On the interactive side we’ve been fortunate to work on several web sites including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Northern Metalic, Camgill Enterprises, Yardstick Technologies, and Alberta Culture Days for the provincial government.

Outside the office, we’ve taken full advantage of the sunshine. Bi-monthly BBQs in the atrium as well as a few lunch excursions to nearby restaurants have kept our appetites sated. That along with a couple of very rewarding ACE events and an afternoon film at the Edmonton Film Festival have made for a fulfilling summer. One of the highlights was an early afternoon road trip for drinks, dinner, and a fiercely competitive bocce ball tournament!

Regardless of falling temperatures our commitment to extra-curricular will continue. In fact we’ve already booked to attend “Cultivate: Terry O’Reilly”.

Congratulations to everybody who made the VP project a reality! If you’d like to peruse the work we’ve done with Valour Place you can find it in our portfolio.

We thank the Festival Board for giving us the freedom to produce world-class creative over the past 10 years as their marketing sponsor.

Not surprising considering the festival’s huge success in years past and another impressive lineup this year including Arrested Development, Emmylou Harris, Kentucky Thunder, and Bonnie Raitt.

Each year Vision designs the festival’s poster and each year we hold a contest to give away weekend passes to a lucky winner. If you were one of the many people who couldn’t get tickets, be sure to come back after July 4th when we’ll be holding this year’s contest. The prize? A festival package that will include two passes for you and a friend.

That’s why we decided to connect you with some change makers we admire and their projects and share some resources to inspire social innovation and sustainability.

Project H Design

http://www.projecthdesign.org/

Founded by industrial designer Emily Piloton in 2009 after she got frustrated with design in the traditional sense and vowed to focus on design that improved Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness.

“Project H uses the power of design and hands-on building to catalyze communities and public education from within.”

Emily Piloton is also the author of the book Design Revolution that features more than 100 innovative, sustainable, need-based products like the Hippo Water Roller, a rolling barrel with a handle that eases water transport; AdSpecs, adjustable liquid-filled eyeglasses; and Learning Landscapes, low-cost playgrounds that combine math skills and physical activity.

The Living Principles

livingpriciples.org offers an in-depth, helpful roadmap to serve as a guide in creative practices and projects.

“The Living Principles framework weaves environmental, social, economic, and cultural sustainability into an actionable, integrated approach that can be consistently communicated to designers, business leaders, educators and the public.”

Ideo.org

A current project, part of ideo.org is building a brand strategy for Ghana’s toilet services. You can read the detailed case study and a brief analysis on the impact it has already created.

A Gallery of advertising that creates change

Advertising campaigns from around the world, centered on the topic of sustainability and social impact. The site is hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme. The ads are great spare-time viewing, and sure to bring a great dose of inspiration. Take a look.

Re-nourish

http://www.re-nourish.com/

An online tool advocating awareness and action for sustainable systems thinking in the communication design community. The website includes a Paper Finder Tool and a Project Calculator.

4 Principles for creating change

Finally from Co.Exist, a good read on what steps we can follow when working with non-profits and what pitfalls to avoid in our efforts to create an impact.

MADinSpain

April 13th – 14th
Madrid, Spain
madinspain.com/2012/en

“MADinSpain is a two day international design event featuring the most remarkable creative minds of our time. Every year, leading imaginative designers and agencies gather together in Madrid to share their insights and breathe creativity.”

Put on by Domestika, this is the seventh annual event and features prolific speakers from around the world including Stefan Sagmeister, Cuban Council+ Nando Costa + Randy J. Hunt.

99%

New York City, NY, USA
May 3rd – 4th
the99percent.com/conference

“The goal of the 99% is to shift the focus from idea generation to idea execution. To accomplish this, we bring together some of the world’s most productive creative visionaries and leading researchers to share pragmatic insights on how ideas are brought to life.”

There are a lot of ideas out there, but only a few of those come into fruition. 99% is attempting to change this by mounting a conference with a focus on something a little different. Organized by Behance, the conference features the most prolific creatives in the world, not talking about how to dream, but how to execute.

Semi-Permanent

“Semi-Permanent is a world leading design conference that to date has hosted 29 events in 9 cities, covering 5 countries, with over 200 speakers and 50,000 attendees. In 2012, Semi-Permanent celebrates ten years of events- that’s a decade full of stories and wisdom from industry idols. “

Semi-Permanent is widely considered one of the most accessible conferences in the world. Topics range from graffiti to stop motion and architecture to film. Because of this exposure to so many creative disciplines you can see how creative types would find it a hotbed of inspiration.

For 2012 they have planned 4 events in Australia:

• Sydney – May 11th & 12th
• Auckland – May 18th & 19th
• Brisbane – July 27th
• Melbourne – September 14th & 15th

semipermanent.com/

Pepcon

San Francisco, CA, USA
May 14th – 16th
pepconference.com/

InDesign enthusiast pay attention, PepCon is the conference for you. It focuses on production and publishing topics used to create eBooks, annual reports, print, interactive documents, and more. Founded in 2005 by renowned InDesign experts David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepción, the two-day conference in San Francisco is followed by a full day of tutorials and workshops for some hands on application.

agIdeas

May 21st to 25th
Melbourne, Australia
agideas.net/

“agIdeas International Design Week is the largest and most prestigious design festival in the world. Established in 1991 by Ken Cato, developed and presented by the Design Foundation. agIdeas offers an extraordinary program of events that celebrate design excellence and promotes the value of design driven innovation.”

Big Design

May 31st – June 2nd
Addison, TX, USA
bigdesignevents.com/conference/

Big Design is a three-day affair that covers three areas: Career Development, Design, Development, and Strategy. With a ton of speakers and topics covered, there really is something here for everyone. There will also be 30 booths with exhibitors including Adobe, Knowbility, and Madcap Software.

Valio Con

San Diego, CA, USA
June 7th – 10th
valiocon.com/
Valio Con is a web design & development focused conference. It takes pride on mixing business and pleasure. It’s held at the Hyatt Mission Bay Resort and boasts a beach, bonfires, cookouts, giveaways, prizes, design competition, water slides, and a drink night. With a couple workshops and a well-rounded schedule it looks like it’s going to be one of the more exciting events of the year.

How Design Live

Boston, USA
June 21st – 25th
howdesignlive.com

HOW is a mega event held in Boston. It consists of four conferences HOW Design, InHOW Managers, Creative Freelancer, and The Dieline Package Design. With two of the conferences focusing on management and freelancing one could say this event is geared towards the more business-oriented types. While this is somewhat true, the HOW Design Conference offers plenty on the purely creative side. Many workshops and studio tours are included and they also offer an exhibit hall featuring a ton of graphic design resources.

Brand New

underconsideration.com/brandnewconference/

Brand New 2012 hasn’t officially been announced yet, but with the great success of their last conference last September in San Francisco, it would make sense that another is in the works. It is a one day event and an extension of the popular blog. The conference will showcase corporate and brand identity practices from varying points of view. A live webcast is also available alongside pay-per-download videos.

Gain

San Francisco, CA, USA-
October 9th – 10th
aiga.org/gain-conference-2012/

Organized bi AIGA, this bi-annual conference in SF has a focus on “socially aware” projects. Socially innovative and relevant work has a larger part to play in how businesses present themselves and build on their brand. The event will address the issues with such work and how different approaches can yield very different results both corporately and in the community in regards to social value and human experiences.

As part of our ongoing community involvement, Vision gathered ingredients, formed teams, “designed” aprons, and marched over to the Edmonton Mustard Seed. The Mustard Seed is a non-for-profit organization that provides meals, clothing, housing, and employment services to those living in poverty. To help with their effort, we decided to bake a number of items that could be served at their daily coffee bar.

A guided tour of the facility opened our eyes to some of the hardships and daily struggle that many of Edmonton’s disadvantaged populace endures. The Mustard Seed provides food items through the Edmonton Food Bank program, but because of the shortage of donations, one person can only be given enough food to cover three or four days out of a single month. If you’re able, please consider donating or volunteering with the Mustard Seed or the Food Bank. With 40% of the Food Bank’s clients under the age of 18, you’d be hard pressed to find such a worthwhile cause in this city that compares.

Over all, the morning was a resounding success, with plenty of baking and laughs to go around. The three teams competitiveness did not spill into a food fight (to some people’s disappointment). However, there were a couple muffins that went missing near the end…

The energy of over 400 participants and volunteers filled the room and quickly got the team energized for the first session of the day – kickboxing. To say the least, it kicked our butts. After 40 straight minutes of punching, kicking, mountain climbers, burpies etc. we were glad to hear that the next session would be yoga. Tree poses, downward facing dogs and savasanas ended up being a much-needed walk in the park. Then came Vision’s sponsored hip-hop session (Have a look at our sponsor video!) – a lesson in how to look and feel “cool”. We can’t say we looked it, but we felt it…

The morning flew by and it was time for lunch and massages. Twenty heavenly minutes spent in the wellness centre and we were ready to take on the second half of the day. The afternoon had a complete party vibe as we exercised through three sessions of zumba (one of our favorites!), salsa, and the grand finale, an aerobics work out with Richards Simmons – outfitted in his Swarovski embroidered workout gear.

By the end of it all the Visionaries were Bust A Moved out! Although exhausted from the day’s events there was a sense of accomplishment in the room – not just for completing the six hour fitness challenge but for collectively raising over $400 000 for breast cancer research in Alberta! At the end of the day, sore arms and stiff legs never felt better.

Typically we work behind the scenes in preparation for events. However, the opportunity to not only work with the Alberta Cancer Foundation but also participate in the event gave us front row seats to witness the payoff and success from months of hard work and dedication. Thank you to the Alberta Cancer Foundation for allowing us to be apart of Bust A Move’s first year in Edmonton and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for Bust A Move 2013!

Hallmark Holiday Creative brought to you by Vision. With the success of ‘Our Vision of Love’ Valentines Day contest we decided to hold another office challenge. This time around we put our rhyming skills to the test.

In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day each of us composed a limerick. Two plates of bland nachos and a few green beers later we came up with some interesting material. Competition was tight but in the end Harry took top prize! (Note – he now has ‘Funniest Valentine’ and ‘Best Limerick’ under his belt.) Not too shabby for our resident web developer. Our other big winner was our writer Dave. Interestingly, Bev was the inspiration for both limericks. Hmmmmm… ?

Winners below. Sadly many did not make the cut due to some questionable content. All in all our Irish pub road trip showcased Vision’s latent (lazy?) talent for a rhyme and made for some great laughs. Stay tuned for our next creative office challenge!

First Prize

There once was a girl named Beverly
Who dealt with a client quite cleverly
She created a Powerpoint
And lit up a massive joint
And watched them all die of lethargy

Second Prize

The limerick contest went amiss
When Bev suggested a rhyme with fist
Eye brows were raised
Christy’s still dazed
Oh hell, let’s all get pissed