Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Tag: Marketing

Bread you can believe in, and other silly tag lines.

greatwallstudios1 Comment on Bread you can believe in, and other silly tag lines.

Having worked in marketing departments for some multinational corporations you really start to see just how much BS there is out in the world regarding your average product. From bread to deodorant, to wine and beer. A tonne of the marketing jargon is bunk made up my pedantic people playing at semantics. It’s all geared towards garnering the cash of not only the staple consumer, but the fickle and flighty “experiential” consumer who is looking for an ‘experience or ritual’ attached to their product. What your average person considers to be just opening a can or bottle, they call a cherished pause in the day to listen to the crisp pop of the bottle cap, and the decanting of the golden liquid, etc etc… copy writers just describe opening a bottle in fancy terms and a select few people gobble that shit up.

You can really see it if you have kids ages four through ten. When those endless commercials for toys come on inbetween the endless stream of shows geared towards showcasing those self same toys. The colours, the tone of voice, the offer of something you JUST CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT. Ugh. It’s a thing.

So Day 60 is here and it is once again cold, icy and snowing. Winter in Canada, what more is there to say? Going to enjoy some breakfast while watching Rock Solid Builds out of Newfoundland. Praise be to HGTV and the kids actually playing well together for a change. I need to eat.

Having some fun messing around with 3d rendering.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Having some fun messing around with 3d rendering.

So over the last few years I have doodled some faux beer brands for shits & giggles to keep busy and sane. Well now I am able to render them most realistically and in about 1/10th of the time my old method took me. Which makes me both happy and excited for the future of my graphic design business. Mock ups won’t eat up endless hours of my day anymore. Wah whooh!

Some samples with and without lighting effects and/or surface effects:

5 Year Anniversary

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on 5 Year Anniversary

A few weeks ago; October 6th, 2013, I reached a bench mark at my current position that I initially didn’t think was possible. I have been a full time graphic designer for Moosehead Breweries Limited | The Premium Beer Company for five years and counting. This is something I consider to be an achievement, for a few reasons. The first being a rather funny anecdotal experience.

When I first interviewed here back in September of 2008, I met with two Marketing professionals who were looking to begin a pilot project for bringing in as much design work in-house as they could, as a cost savings measure, and as a way to ensure more overall cohesion in the materials being created. (**Both marketers and the VP at the time are now no longer with the company). During the last portion of the interview process I met with the VP of marketing here and the first words out of his mouth were “You know Marketing is a tough business, there can be a lot of turn around, two years is a long time here”. Two years? I thought to myself, that isn’t a very long time to drop what I am doing and come aboard here, only to have to continue the job search 24 months later, if that. But I was young, and hopeful and was thinking about time in traditional terms, not Marketing Department terms. After a few weeks in, I came to understand that in fact two years was a long time, and in agency terms it was a lifetime.

We’ve managed to cover an awful lot of ground at Moosehead. Being the entirety of the Art dept for 3.5 years was a tough, but ultimately fulfilling task.Since then I’ve managed to grow the dept by one, and added in an alternating GD internship which is open to college applicants in southern Ontario. As a unit we cover all of Canada, the United States, and a few far flung points around the globe (mainly Singapore, the UK, and South America). We’ve tackled everything from Billboards and fleet graphics, to labels and cartons, to story boarding web commercials and event video loops down to customizable POS items for accounts across the country.

So many great people have passed through here, and I’ve collaborated on some really wonderful projects and brands. I’ve learned so much, and have been afforded a chance to break new ground and test ideas of my own. I’m thankful for the 5 years I’ve had, and I look forward to as many more!

Cheers!

4667 note worthy projects and counting as of Nov 4th, 2013.