Design: Cause + Affect
Client:
Date: 2010
This small installation in the W building in Vancouver was created to explain some of the architectural projects that were happening in the city during the Olympics.
Add comment August 27th, 2010
Design: Cause + Affect
Client:
Date: 2007
Add comment August 10th, 2010
Design:
Client: OCAD Professional Gallery
Date: 2007
Photo courtesy Ontario College of Art & Design
Add comment June 8th, 2010
Design: Matt Warburton
Client: Alison Miyauchi
Date: 2005
“For me personally war is many things. It is above all a violent, atrocious horror. But it has shaped and influenced our country and my family alike. For better or worse it has strengthened my love for Canada and my self-image as a Canadian. But since those early days of war, I have to ask “is there a place for war?”. Do we need it to achieve defined rights and freedoms among nations? I have also seen amazing negotiators in my lifetime: Lester B. Pearson and Steven Lewis for example. They have used an artillery of skills that don’t require a trigger.” – Matt Warburton
This poster was created for the exhibition Lest We Forget: Canadian Designers on War, curated by Alison Miyauchi for The Works Art and Design Festival, Edmonton, Alberta. 24 prominent Canadian designers were invited to create work for the exhibition – a PDF of the entire exhibit can be downloaded here.
-Michael Erdmann
Add comment May 15th, 2010
Design: Todd Falkowsky
Client: Motherbrand
Date: 2010
Designed as an annual suggestion, This Year’s Colour 2010 was sampled from nature, the ultra tough lichen (the only organism that can survive in outer space). The project presents this natural colour, with it’s characteristics of hardiness, resilience and hope as a fitting signature of our times, and as a powerful way to express ourselves in the New Year.
3 comments April 28th, 2010
Design: Todd Falkowsky and John Ryan, Motherbrand
Client: Harbourfront Centre, Toronto ON
Date: 2009
Emblems and icons, of colours, patterns, smells and more, are the building blocks, the raw components of a community and compose our cultural identity. We have collectively created and assembled this library of identity, and is something we implicitly agree to share. Over time, it is this library that becomes the history, meaning and expression of our cultural experience.
In this information age, everything is competing for our attention. In this global age, identity is blurring and brands – in place of locations – are gaining in currency. To keep our material culture from disappearing, it must be exercised and never become narrow or stagnant. As creatives, the more we use our shared identity in our work, the more flexible and robust our culture becomes and our symbols become inspirational fountains.
This exhibit presents a “designer toolbox” where working strategies are explained to encourage creatives to tap and express local culture in their work. The works of John Ryan, Douglas Coupland, Palette Industries, Cynthia Hathaway, Ouno, Chris Clarke, Granted Clothing, and Todd Falkowsky are presented to illustrate the tools needed to take material culture into the information age.
Special thanks to Melanie Egan, Geoffrey Lilge, and Granted Clothing.
3 comments September 21st, 2009
Design: Curated by Modus Design’s Marek Cecula
Client: Gardiner Museum
Date: 2008
The Gardiner Museum in Toronto houses an expansive collection of 3,000 historic and contemporary ceramic pieces that trace the history of this ancient craft. Their new exhibition ‘object factory’ focuses specifically on the art of industrial ceramics. The exhibition features more than 200 ceramic pieces by artists, designers and industrial manufacturers.
As guest curator, Cecula focused on the new relationship between ceramic artists, designers and manufacturers that has emerged in the last few decades. The show features work from 18 different countries, including established ceramicists as well as artists and designers. these works explore new technological innovations in ceramics and new formal experimentation. The works are displayed categorically highlighting the similarities between the works, despite their artistic or industrial origins. The various sections highlight the interaction between design and industry (in both directions), material exploration, form manipulation, applied imagery as well as high tech ceramics and lighting.
The exhibit fluently traces the continuing relationship between design and industry, while the pieces serve to explore the seemingly endless material possibilities inherent in ceramics. ‘Object Factory’ is sharply focused on this particular niche of ceramics, painting a vivid picture of its progression until now and hinting at its future.
-Nate Archer Via
Add comment September 3rd, 2009
Curated by: Julie Nicholson and Shaun Moore of MADE, Toronto, edited in collaboration with Esther Shipman.
Client: Design at Riverside Gallery, University of Waterloo Faculty of Architecture, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON
Date: August 26th-October 19th 2008
The aesthetic and cultural threads of the original Radiant Dark were distilled into a more compact version for Design at Riverside. Its theme of darkness and luxury responded with intensity to the white-bright space; reflecting some of the diverse approaches and personalities of some of the future leading lights of Canadian design.
Catalogue introduction by Esther Shipman.
Exhibition Photos © Dave Poplow
Add comment July 26th, 2009
Curated: Julie Nicholson and Shaun Moore
Client: MADE, Toronto
Date: 2008
Radiant Dark was conceived as a series to make accessible to the public the rich and multifaceted; sometimes obscured; aspects of independent, contemporary Canadian design. Held in a vacant space in the Burroughes Building in Toronto; Radiant Dark’s opening was postponed by a day as the Queen Street fire consumed neighbouring buildings in the block. Despite limited access due to the fire, the 7 day exhibit drew large numbers. It presented new works from over 50 design studios. Its theme afforded a snapshot of the dedicated practices and personal expression within current Canadian design.
Catalogue Introduction by Catherine Osborne
Exhibition Photos © Andrew Robertson
Party Photo © Siya Chen
Add comment July 16th, 2009
Design: Cause + Affect
Client: Museum of Vancouver
Date: 2008
“Movers and Shapers 2008 at the Vancouver Museum is the culmination of the two previous M&S Exhibitons in 2004 and 2007. Many of the designers featured in 2004 have gone on to international acclaim and are no longer considered emerging, while most of the 2007″ contributors are early in their influential design careers. The show surveys the material culture of the west and is working to connect the public with design.
Add comment May 20th, 2009
Design: Freedom Fighter Skateboards
Client: The DISPOSABLE ART Show
Date: 2009
Add comment May 12th, 2009
Design: Rita Design Studio, Montréal Quebec
Client: Quebec Museum of Fine Arts collection.
Date: 2008
This studio from Montréal, is absolutely dripping with talent, and seem to have a very deep well of bright ideas (read, loads of more posts on their work coming to the CDR). Their exhibit, Rita’s Living Room is a perfect commentary on what we consider good design, and what design even is anymore.
The studio created a faux archetypal Québec living room. A replica packed with the grab bag of influences that most people live, and decorate their homes with. Completely free of the styles and trends that swamp the trendy magazines and design press, this space is about the real world of non-design, and symbolizes the freedom and absence of “good design” that makes these “real” spaces homey and modest.
An excellent piece of work from a real phenomenal group of designers. Go Rita!
-Todd Falkowsky
2 comments May 11th, 2009
Design: MoiMoi (Claire Ironside, Angela Iarocci, and Andrew Hladkyj)
Client: HarbourFront Centre
Date: 2007-08
Photo: Bernice Iarocci
FishNet is a two-part project comprised of a craft phase, where children from 25 Toronto based schools, learn and understand the habitat of local fish and make textile copies of indigenous species (like little stuffed pillows), and part two, a release phase “occurs when Harbourfront Centre, acting (metaphorically) as a fish hatchery, sponsors the ‘release’ of the crafted textile fish” and fills their main gallery with all the kids copies swimming around the space.
“When complete, the project will have combined the creative talents of approximately 2,000 students, educators, artists and designers for the purposes of exploring the multiple themes of sustainability, collaboration and activism”.
-Todd Falkowsky
Add comment April 13th, 2009
Design: Douglas Coupland
Client: Contact
Date: 2007
Add comment April 9th, 2009
Design:
Client: Commissaires
Date: 2009
If you are in Montreal this coming week, stop by the Commissaires opening. Looks fantastic (as usual)!
-Todd Falkowsky
Add comment April 3rd, 2009