The Applied Arts Advertising Annual cover

Dear Luck,

You have nothing to do with what we do. You aren’t passionate, resilient, courageous or committed. You aren’t brave. You don’t persevere. Burn the midnight oil. Buck the system. Take ownership. You don't walk away then come back better. Take a beating & get back up in the same breath. You don’t listen, observe, ask questions. Take criticism like a mother-f*cking champ. You never wander around aimlessly, hopelessly, in search of something. Anything. You don't take matter & turn it into a tangible that does. You don’t push yourself, or pull the best out of others. You roll solo. Not as a team. You don’t obsess over details. Fear failure. Craft the sh!t out of things. You're not a perfectionist. Or a masochist. You don’t work at home. In bed. On vacation. You're not open for ideas twenty-four seven. You don’t sit in a bar & write down ideas instead of phone numbers. You’re the way of the lazy. You rely on chance, not hard work. You have nothing to do with what we do.

- The Unlucky

Superstition - opening umbrellas inside

Superstition - spilling salt

Superstition - breaking a mirror

Superstition - black cat crossing your path

Superstition - walking under a ladder

It was wicked when the Luck Voodoo from our cover made the 2014 Graphis Design Annual's cover.

The Unlucky Series - shot in an abandoned Toronto warehouse. Photography & Re-Touching: Mark Zibert & Team | Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art-Direction & typography: Matt Howe | Designers: Cassy Sowcroft & Jenny May | Creative Directors: Sean Davison & Sarah Grundy | Producer: Julia Auriema

Here's how the shots looked in context:

If you're obsessed with JDMs, there's a good chance it started with one of these.

Copy: In case of psychotic lumberjack break glass.

Light being the ultimate weapon against evil in the game, we turned transit shelters into emergency flashlight stations.

Writer:  Natalie Greenspan | Art-Directors: Arron Isaac & Ben Playford | Creative Directors: Scott Couture & Gary Lennox | ECD Sean Davison |  Photographers LSD | Media Partner: Astral

A Winning Display

For the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Coca-Cola wanted a real-time digital medal tracker for its outdoor campaign. We took a more tangible approach, transforming Canada's iconic maple leaf into a 3D medal tally. Gold, silver and bronze medals were added as Canadian athletes won them—in record numbers.

Happiness, Made in Canada.

For the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, we gave Coca-Cola's global Open Happiness campaign a distinctly Canadian spin. From hockey fanaticism to big air, we captured the spirit of the Games through a national outdoor campaign spanning skyboards, superboards and SkyTrain placements across Vancouver and the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art-director: Matt Howe | Photography Direction: KC Armstrong | Creative Directors:  Wade Hesson & Rob Kingston | ECD: Sean Davison | Photography & Retoucing: Mark Zibert & Team

Copywriter: Natalie Greenspan | Art Direction, Photography & Re-Touching: Matt Howe

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Designed in collaboration with Arron Isaac | Photographer: Philip Rostron

Photographer: Nikki Omerod, Westside | Art-director: Arron Isaac | Creative Directors: Cam Boyd & Troy McGuiness | Production: Craft

Overlanding Safari with @f87maxxi
Caption: The hunt’s over. @f87maxxi tracked down the overlanders that ruled SEMA 🏕️

Speed Dating Cars with @anataliav

Caption: Speed dating with @anataliav—but make it car builds 💨🚗 Find your perfect ride and the parts that make your heart race—all on eBay ❤️

Dealing Hot Takes with @christinaroki
Caption: We challenged some of the biggest names at SEMA to pick a card, any card, and give us their hottest take. Now—drop your take on the trend you’re most fired-up over in the comments ❤️‍🔥💬

Five Words or Less with @christinaroki
Caption: So many new products, so little time ⌚️Watch what happened when we asked sales reps at SEMA to pitch their latest, greatest offering—in 5 words or less.

Caption: The eBay Motors Pit Crew caught up with @chrisfixit for a DIY demo on how to clean and ceramic coat your ride like a pro. Scrub-a-dub-dub—have a watch to see how it’s done. Then cruise over to eBay Motors 🔗 in bio for everything you need to keep your ride unsqueaky and clean

10 Airbags. 9 Lives.

The Cruze was the most crash-tested car in history. To bring that claim to life, we transformed one of Canada's busiest commuter pathways into an automotive test track, leading subway passengers straight to the Cruze.

Turning Billboards Into Bags

Where do billboards go when they die? In our case, they got a second life. After one of Chevrolet Canada's biggest media campaigns, we rescued Cruze billboard vinyl from landfills and combined it with recycled seatbelts and bicycle inner tubes to create hundreds of functional bags made entirely from locally sourced, upcycled materials.

Campaign Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art Director: Arron Isaac | Digital Art Director: Jeremy Lenz | Digital Writer Bill Schaefer | Creative Directors: Nancy Crimi, Frank Lepre, Josh Haupert & Ben Playford | ECD’s: Sean Davison & Mike Halminen | Producers: Sarah Michener & Derek Sewell | Director: Neil Abramson, Holiday Films | Editors Ross Birchall & Mel Hider, Saints Editorial | Music Licensing & Sound Design: Grayson Matthews

Copy: darkness: priceless | For blinds, ibuprofen and everything you need New Year's Day, there's MasterCard. 

Priceless, Eh?

Our challenge was to give Mastercard's global Priceless campaign a distinctly Canadian perspective. From camping under the stars and lakefront sunsets to fresh tracks in the Rockies, we celebrated the simple pleasures that make life in Canada priceless through a series of weekly newspaper banners.

MasterCard & Costco - Canadian Partnership Launch

When MasterCard was set to launch as the new exclusive credit card at Costco, they needed an approach that would endear their staunchly loyal members to the change at hand - especially if they were Amex Card holders. We created this campaign to play in-store & on digital screens at cash. 

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art-Director: Marc Melonson & Arron Isaac | Account Director: Adam Bercovici | Animation: Tinman | Producer: Revital Grunberg | Music & Sound: Grayson Matthews | 

The Sonic wasn’t just another subpar sub-compact. Designed by top designers in flashy Gangnam Korea & tuned by Corvette engineers, the Sonic was a serious mix of style & performance that equated to one turbocharged fun ride to drive. The campaign we created set out to prove it.

Rather than just hanging a 2-D graffiti graphic on a billboard at one of Toronto's busiest urban intersections, we commissioned local artists to spray them live over a 24-hour period.

The digital experience turned a traditional car configurator into a virtual mixing board so users could mix and master Sonic precisely to their liking. Every customization also switched up the music, letting people create their own car and soundtrack at the same time. The music database was a collection of Canadian Indie Artists.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art Director: Arron Isaac | Digital Art-Director: Jeremy Lenz | Digital Copywriter: Bill Schaeffer | Creative Directors: Josh Haupert, Frank Lepre, Joe Musico | ECD's: Sean Davison & Mike Halminen | Photographer: Chris Gordaneer | Director: Neil Abrahmson, Holiday Films | Music: Silent Joe

When the client came to us, they had two things; a coveted spot on the dial & ambitions of being #1 on it. As Toronto’s first pure indie radio station, what they needed from us wasn’t an ad campaign. It was a brand that connected with people as authentically as the music they'd be playing did.  So I got writing, the design team designing to deliver a logo, tagline, mission, manifesto & style guide. Today, Indie 88.1 has become Toronto's favourite hang-out by delivering on their promise to give great music a home. 

Indie88 bought a townhouse in Liberty Village as their office & studio headquarters. With all the music playing on their station coming from a home, the tagline worked on multiple levels. 

I. We. Together, we're Indie. And we put music first. The artists. The audience. The inspiration. The songwriting. The instruments. The album cover. The poster art. The live show. After show. Secret show. Tour t-shirt. Popular. Obscure. Signed. Unsigned. We believe indie comes in all shapes and sizes. We put the quest to uncover, discover & rediscover it first. Then we play it. Interview it. Debate it.  Stream it. Socialize it. Chart it. Support it. Because music’s what inspires us. It’s an expression of who we are. A passion made greater through sharing. A universal language that connects us all. We’re a platform. A melting pot. A collective. A home for everyone who believes music matters. The station where “I” becomes “we." That plays your favourite songs - you just might not know them yet.

Indie 88 has a huge digital and social presence - which our branding laid the foundation for.

We created an 88 stencil and spray painted it on existing Indie album covers we found at local vinyl shops. In true DIY spirit, the stencil was included as a record sleeve inside along with the brand style-guide.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Designers: Matt Howe,  Cassie Sowcroft & Jenny May | Creative Director: Sean Davison

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art-Director Arron Isaac | Creative director: Jonathan Careless | ECD Sean Davison | Print Photography & Retouching: Craft | Director: Jasper, Industry Films | Editor: Griff Henderson, Saints Editorial | Post Production: Smith

Wind's Cross Coverage all across Canada guarantees you'll have a signal even in the barren reality of Bear Country.

Basically, from the moment we’re born, the attempt to limit our communication is set in motion. True Mobile Freedom is about removing those barriers by allowing us to talk our hearts out for an unlimited talk, text and data plan for $40 a month. Now that’s worth tapping about.

When MasterCard needed a campaign that would speak to Canadian small business owners about a new credit-card tailored to their unique entrepreneurial needs, we opted to let them speak. From the East Coast to the West, we travelled across Canada to photograph & get one-on-one insight through fact-to-face interviews with them.

Launched with a National newsprint and digital campaign - doubling as free advertising for our small business owners - bringing in new business for theirs.

Final analysis? A priceless soultion for all.

Art-Director: Arron Isaac | Creative Directors: Rob Kingston & Wade Hesson | Photographer: Chris Gordaneer, Westside

What's in a name? In Andrew Murray's case, his logo. The A & M lent themselves perfectly to a roof shape. 

A roofing contractor from a rural community, Andrew Murray needed a brand identity that would cut through clutter. Our solution was an ownable logo and business card that stood out -and above his competition.

https://www.cgtrader.com/

Concept Design & Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Logo designed in collaboration with Arron Isaac

Asking agency folk to donate money is more effective when you speak their language.  The result was a record number of pledges & reaching our fundraising goal a week early.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art Director: Arron Isaac

Ziploc wanted to let people know their freezer bags keep food super fresh - even in the coldest conditions. We created an ad that took it to extremes. We even went as far as hiring a special-effects make-up artist to create the frozen facade on our model – so the final image was almost all shot in camera.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art Directed: Arron Isaac | Photographer: Philip Rostron | Re-touching: Instil Productions

Ziploc Space Bags give you three times more space. Walk-in-closet in a drawer anyone? Yes please.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art Director: Arron Isaac | Photographer: KC Armstrong

Ziploc Space Bags have a vacuum seal – so they seriously compress to save a ton of space. This pretty much makes them the perfect storage solution for a clothes-horse like myself - and Ms. Kardashian.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art-director: Arron Isaac

Army's of people suffer from tattoo regret but fear pulling the trigger on removal. With the most advanced lasers on the market, these newsprint, out-of home & digital ads aimed to let them know Precision was the fastest, most effective way to removing bad tattoos for good.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art Director: Arron Isaac | Photographer: Chris Gordaneer, Westside Studios

To celebrate Toronto Fashion Week, MasterCard created Stylicity – a retail program offering cardholders exclusive savings at the shops and restaurants in four of our cities trendiest neighborhoods. So when it came to creating the campaign, we figured who better as the face than the trend-setting merchants themselves? A great grassroots way to get the local merchants excited & behind the program, we did an open casting callout - then photographed & interviewed the handpicked group in their retail spaces for outdoor & digital content.

To further dial-up the style factor of the campaign, we worked with designer Alina Skyson to create custom nameplates for each neighborhood - reflecting the unique personality and vibe of the area.

Along with the out-of-home campaign, I also had the pleasure of satiating my inner wannabe Fashion Editor writing the Stylicity website content too. Knowing people’s fascination with the lifestyles of the stylish-set, we gave them an opportunity to get some insight into the merchants. Where they shop, drink, play, hang, get coiffed, all the really important stuff;)

Art-Director: Arron Isaac | Typography Designer: Alina Skyson | Creative Directors: Cam Boyd & Troy McGuiness | ECD'S: Sean Davison & Mike Halminen | Photographer: Regina Garcia

While trends trend and fads fade, jeans are a wardrobe staple. Like a second-skin, they’re a silent witness to our storied experiences. Using this insight, we created a new brand platform for Bluenotes that paid homage to the rites of passage we experience in denim – in a timeless, youthful & irreverent way.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art Director: Matt Howe | Creative Director by Hayes Steinberg & Chris Harrison | ECD Sean Davison | Film Director: Robert Logevall | Print Photographer: Jeff Lipsky | Music & Sound: Massive, Amsterdam

Here's a look at how the retail campaign evolved.

Bluenoses Press: http://marketingmag.ca/brands/bluenotes-keeps-on-talking-for-fall-10472/

Art Director: Matt Howe | Creative directors: Nancy Crimi & Frank Lepre | ECD: Sean Davison | Director: Robert Logevall, Holiday Films | Music: Massive Amsterdam

To let the primary family dinner maker’s know cookingwithcambells.com offers hundreds of fast meal solutions, we created a series of flip-books featuring recipes from the site - delivered to their door throughout a two month period.

A sample of how featured Campbell's Flip Book Recipe Series appeared on the site.

Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art-Director: Matt Howe

To promote the 'Music in the Garden' summer concert series at Earthbound Greenhouses, we created 100% biodegradable plant tags that we placed on-site at the nursery, and in public gardens for people to naturally find.

Idea Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art-Director: Arron Isaac | Creative Director: Sean Davison

Copy:  27 flavours with less calories than air, so you can sip your heart out.

With big taste & zero calories, Crystal Light's a totally guilt-free choice for us ladies. Turning the full-page newspaper ad into the object most synonymous with sipping - a straw - delivered the product message in a light-hearted, interactive way. 

Idea Writer: Natalie Greenspan | Art-Director: Arron Isaac | Creative Director: Sean Davison

GMC needed an ad that celebrated their 25-year partnership with the Calgary Stampede’s most popular event - The Rangeland Derby. Our solution not only harnessed the shared spirit between GMC trucks and the stampede – it inspired a unique experience as well.

Knowing cotton candy's a mainstay on Stampede Fairgrounds, we decided to give it a unique GMC twist & serve-it up as Dirt Floss. Throughout the 10-day event, we gave thousands of hungry Stampeders a taste of the brand. It was pretty sweet.

Dove's longstanding campaign for 'Real Beauty' is ultimately about loving ourselves. To do this, we have to Like ourselves first. As it stands, the existing Facebook platform allows us to 'Like' everyone except ourselves. To change this, we created a free Dove Facebook APP that enables people to ‘Like’ themselves by placing the iconic button on their own existing Facebook profile page. The result? Giving almost 1 billion Facebook users globally the power to ‘Like’ themselves. Instantly.

Art Director: Arron Isaac | App Consultant: Louise Clements