Updates

We attended the ADCC Awards as a team and this year were inspired by all of the best work in Canadian advertising and design.

Congratulations to all the 2023 winners and nominees, all their hard work received the recognition it deserved. We look forward to next year’s awards!

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Teams that go Medieval Times together, stay together! We went out to Medieval Times, (and Megan was definitely also there).

It was a night filled with jousting and and shouting for our knight’s attention. Our racket was worth it since we received two flowers from our dear knight.

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Sounds

Mixed by Emblem Vol. 6: Holiday Sounds

Happy Holidays! We gathered our favourite holiday sounds, trying our best to steer away from cheesy classics but inevitably including them. Some of these are classics for a reason!

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Inspiration

Since moving into our new office, there’s been much talk on how we should decorate our space in a way that reflects the Made by Emblem culture. We came across these timeless “Environment Enrichment Panels” created by Alexander Girard that were used to add life to dull office spaces.

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Alexander Girard was raised in Florence and was educated as an architect, spending the beginning of his career in architecture as well as interior design.

From 1952 to 1973, Alexander Girard served as the director of design at Herman Miller’s textile department. It was during his later years that Girard was asked to find a way to include “aesthetic fundamentalism” to Herman Miller’s Action Office.

The Action Office system was the world’s first open-plan office system that focused on people’s needs and behaviours. Girard then presented these Environmental Enrichment Panels as a solution, creating more than 40 designs on 100% linen panels with pre-attached wooden dowels.

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“Art is only art when it is synonymous with living.”

Alexander Girard

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Work Highlights

As we come to the end of the year, we wanted to reflect on the projects we’ve worked on, to commemorate some of our favourites.

From concept to completion, these projects embody the Made by Emblem spirit.

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This year we worked with MaRS on their June 2023 issue, a special print edition focused on Canadian innovators in technological spaces who are shifting the landscape of healthcare, robotics, transportation and quantum computing.

This issue was published in June for the Collision Conference. This marked our fifth publication with MaRS magazine and stands out this year as one of our proudest productions.

To learn more and view previous publications with MaRS read our case study here.

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2023, the year of Pearson Airport projects. We got to redesign a brand identity for a community the size of a city. Working closely with Greater Toronto Airports Authority, we created a brand refresh for “I Am Toronto Pearson”, a community designed to celebrate and support their 50,000+ airport employees.

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We crafted a direction called "resilient heroes" that showcases the skillfulness, joy, and heroism of the individuals that make up this unique community. The typeface was custom designed by us as a reference to Pearson's departure gate signage.

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Seeing the project come to life on billboards, posters, and within the airport area was extremely rewarding in it of itself

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…but a little validation never hurts.

Our campaign was featured in a variety of publications, having our work featured on Strategy, Brand New, and on the Design Professionals of Canada account.

Free Food

This year we created and published Debrief, our new magazine that celebrates the end of a project and fondly looks back at the work that went into it.

We took the liberty of taking pictures on our rooftop and got this striking and vibrant lighting. Loving the results, we turned these into a mockup to share with you for your next project.

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Download here!