Winnipeg, Canada

Our longtime client, The North West Company Fund (NWC), held its Annual and Special Meeting of Unitholders today in the Muriel Richardson Auditorium of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Circle designed NWC’s annual report for the 17th consecutive year—the theme this time around was “More growth in store…” with illustrated stories revolving around that narrative. View the 2009 NWC Annual Report online, here.

Images: Front cover and several interior spreads from the printed report; principal photography (Canada and the Caribbean) by Ian McCausland; Alaska photography by Chris Arend; editorial/writing services by Blunn & Company Inc. of Toronto.

Winnipeg, Canada

Digging through some old files in the office recently, we came across this 17-year-old clipping from the Winnipeg Free Press, which ran just before we moved from our original studio on Albert Street to the space we’ve occupied here at the corner of Princess Street and McDermot Avenue since 1993. Our saying “No” to a cattle-call RFP by a prospective client caught the attention of journalist Martin Cash, who penned a mostly complimentary story about our design practice and ethos (read the whole piece in a 252 KB PDF here, if you like)…

Mr. Cash described Circle as “having become known for a certain thoroughness and a high level of quality”—traits we would like to think have remained with us to this day.

Taipei, Taiwan

Circle’s founder, Robert L. Peters, is in Taiwan for a week as part of the three-city 2009 Conference of International Design Competitions lecture tour; Taipei, Taiching, and Tainan. The two other international presenters are Nakanishi Motoo (one of the great corporate identity masters, responsible for creating and/or managing the image of over one hundred top-500 companies worldwide, among them Bridgestone, Kenwood, Mazda, Asics, Kirin beer, etc., etc.), and Hiroshi Tsunoda, a talented young Tokyo-born product designer with a burgeoning practice in Barcelona, Spain. Peters reports that audience response in the packed-out venues has been enthusiastic and warm (and Taiwan temperatures in the high 20s have been a full 50 degrees warmer than back in the ‘Peg).

Images above: Taipei 101 (the world’s tallest skyscraper when it was completed five years ago); delegates with Rodin’s Thinker at Asia University in Taiching; Peters in Tainan.

São Paulo, Brazil

Our talented colleagues at Oz Design (one of our co-design worldwide partners) were featured this week in the leading Brazilian weekly magazine Veja by means of a 10-page article introducing them as the graphic design professionals who “Give the city a face.” A piece of well-deserved recognition, we think, regarding the efforts that Oz has invested over the past 30 years to promote the value of design in Brazil. If you understand Portuguese, read more here.

Keep up the good work!

Winnipeg, Canada

We’re excited about a significant product launch happening next week here in Winnipeg. For nearly two years we’ve been working intensely with a visionary client team from Conquest Manufacturing Ltd. and a number of leading architects on the conceptual development, ideation, planning, and design of an exciting new product offer—eco-smart, sensibly-sized, precision-built homes reflecting best practices in sustainable design and offering future-proof comfort and convenience.

We’re currently launching the brand (an initial website went live this week here) and the new line of Challenger homes will kick off in dramatic fashion next Friday at the Autumn Home Show in Winnipeg. The Cube, an innovative, modern, two-story home designed by architect Ed Calnitsky, is being assembled right on the Convention Centre floor (from four precision-built modules delivered to the venue). This leading-edge demo home will act as the event’s feature attraction, and will show off innovative products from many of the show’s other exhibitors.

Find details about show hours, etc. here. If you’re in or near Manitoba, we’d encourage you to drop by Booth #217 (right across from The Cube) and see what the future of smart living will be like.

For more information about this launch, contact Robert L. Peters, FGDC
(Tel. +1 204 943 3693).

Winnipeg, Canada

The North West Company (NWC) today held its Annual and Special Meeting of Unitholders at the Winnipeg Convention Centre—President & CEO Edward S. Kennedy was happy to announce the Company’s ninth consecutive year of achieving record sales and earnings (no small feat, given the global economic downturn in the past year).

We were once again pleased to design NWC’s annual report (the 16th consecutive year we have done so), and this year we were also involved in producing a Flash version of the report (viewable online here—high speed connection required). The design approach for NWC’s 2008 Summary Annual Report fleshed out the theme of “sustainable growth” and uses the Company’s major retail banners to convey the story: “favourable industry fundamentals; remote market expertise; an enterprising culture; community-centred retailing; and opportunity in new markets.” You can view an online PDF (2.4 MB) of the 2008 Annual Report here.

Images: The front cover and several interior spreads from the report; principal photography by Ian McCausland; additonal photography by Chris Arend (Alaska) and Herman Crisostomo (Guam); editorial/writing services by Blunn & Company Inc.

São Paulo, Brazil

Our co-design worldwide partners at Oz Design are celebrating their 30th Anniversary, replete with a move into new offices… here’s a congratulatory toast to our talented southern friends from the great white north…

Cheers!

Toronto, Canada

Circle’s founder/principal Robert L. Peters has accepted an invitation to serve on the Design Advisory Board of Applied Arts magazine. Touted as “Canada’s Visual Communications Magazine,” Applied Arts is published six times a year and goes out to a readership of over 65,000. Since its launch in 1986 the magazine has become this country’s premier publication in our field.

Learn more about Applied Arts here.

(from DT&G Magazine)

“Thoughtfully written, concisely edited, beautifully designed…”

There is more to being a designer than using tools to re-form and regurgitate our thoughts. There is more to design than balancing concept with execution. Design is intent: the process of understanding relationships and making choices based on that knowledge. We make our thoughts real when we put them into the world, and they give us back the world we live in. Worldwide Identity, Inspired Design from Forty Countries is thoughtfully written and concisely edited by Robert L. Peters, beautifully designed by his team at Circle (Winnipeg, Canada), and published by Rockport in partnership with Icograda (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations).

Rob is very concerned about how we make our thoughts real in the world—as he should be, with the depth and breadth of his background. Rob is a renaissance designer. Founder of Circle, a former president of Icograda, an internationally respected teacher, juror and speaker; mountain climber and solar home-builder; he has more than smarts and experience—he has passion and he has vision. He ventures into the world and the world sends him back with questions about our future. He entreats, “Aware of the advancing threat of monoculture, can the world’s identity designers help conserve and revive those things that make human culture distinct and unique?”

The opening pages are written with an urgent intelligence, and give an integrated overview at where we now stand as a species from a designer’s point of view. As designers in a globally connected world, it is our responsibility to contribute towards a shift in this place we find ourselves, and Rob drives that point home. As he has said, design is a verb and not a noun—a gestalt, not a thing.

As with most design books the verbal content is brief, but is well written and informative. The first few pages of preface and introduction are worth the price of admission alone. They make you think instead of react: something we all need to do more of. The visual content has a museum quality of wayfinding in 2 dimensions: each country’s opening section is displayed as a keyed demographical brief, describing the conditions through which the designs were conceived and birthed. It is not only a quick reference, it allows cultural comparisons of design produced within various countries in an accessible way, something of interest to all of us in today’s technologically connected world. The identities are collected both as encapsulations with background briefs, and fuller histories as case studies. Many are culturally flavoured, a reminder of how wonderful and necessary distinction is in the face of the “emergence of nonplaces (uniform airports, generic shopping malls), and the advancement of what some theorists are calling ‘serial monotony.’” He also points out that more than half of the world’s top economies are no longer countries, but now belong to the corporations. This explains a lot, doesn’t it?

The book opens with “Identity lies at the very core of culture, and it is the key to our understanding of self.” This is a book to remind you of that and it should be on every thinking designer’s bookshelf. Better design leads to better choices, and better choices lead to better design.

–Maggie Macnab, author of Decoding Design, principal of Macnab Design. Read more reviews of Worldwide Identity here.

Winnipeg, Manitoba

The North West Company (NWC) today held its Annual and Special Meeting of Unitholders in the Muriel Richardson Auditorium of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. We were once again pleased to design NWC’s annual report (the 15th consecutive year) and provide additional presentation design services. This year’s report marked a change to a dynamic new tabloid format, in keeping with the dramatic growth experienced by the firm over the past 12 months (in part, through the acquisition of a chain of warehouse club-style stores in the South Pacific and Caribbean). The cover plays on the dramatic geographic differences between customers in the high arctic and the Caribbean; the report’s feature section demonstrates NWC’s unique approach to “human-scale” retailing through documentary customer testimonials.

In the past year NWC added 1200 new associates and 21 stores (current total of 221), and generated total revenue of $1.3 billion (75% of which comes from selling food). See more of the report here; view the new corporate identity we recently designed for NWC here.

Winnipeg, Canada

The recently-founded First Pension Plan & Benefits Co-operative Ltd. today held its first Annual General Meeting in Winnipeg. First Plan Co-operative has been created to provide a single pension and benefits plan for all First Nations and Aboriginal Government employees and businesses. The member-owned co-operative “offers an ideal model for Aboriginal people, reflecting the traditional practices of communal decision-making and sharing.” First Plan Benefits is an exciting initiative that is owned and controlled by the very people using the products and services, a plan free from outside influence, in which the profits generated go back directly to Aboriginal people and their communities.

Over the past months, Circle has been pleased to work closely with the co-op’s founders in a consultative and design capacity—shaping a cohesive identity, developing a key message platform and an initial marketing plan, and designing a trade exhibit, presentations, literature, and promotional tools. We’re particularly chuffed to be able to collaborate with an organization that is truly democratic (member-driven), and is based on ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others. Read more about First Plan Benefits and this visionary co-op here (one-page PDF).

The co-op’s visual identity draws from a traditional Anishinaabe petroform (boulder outline) of a turtle as found in Manitoba’s Whiteshell Provincial Park—turtles hold special symbolic significance in First Nation mythology, with the rising of a turtle from the water depicting the formation of the North American continent (i.e. turtle island). Many Native children are taught to examine the segments on a turtle’s back—there are always thirteen large segments (which represent the thirteen moons which make up the lunar year). By counting the smaller segments around the lower edge of the shell, one finds that there are always 28 (which represents the 28 days between new moons).

Winnipeg, Canada

Photographer Mike Grandmaison (Grandmaison Photography) has just launched the new website that Circle designed for him last year. Hosted at and powered by an intuitive content management system from Smallbox Software, Mike’s new site features thousands of his outstanding Canadian images—available for “rights-managed” stock use, publishing, fine art decor, etc. If you enjoy Canadian landscapes (Mike has traveled from corner to corner of this great land) and/or are looking for extraordinary imagery, please visit Mike’s new website here. Read more about the design of the website here.

Steinbach, Manitoba

Over the past few years we’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Hermann & Sheryl Grauer of Nature’s Farm™. Our work entailed an update to the firm’s corporate identity (including a cohesive visual vocabulary including icon sets), as well as development of brand assets, innovative packaging, and collateral marketing tools for both ‘classic’ and new organic pasta offerings. An exciting aspect of our relationship has been a shared commitment to ecological sustainability and stewardship—this set the stage for the development of innovative new packaging that minimizes environmental impact. (For example: the minimalist paper neck-tag style of labeling eliminates all glues and lends itself to recycling; use of informative icons reduced the need for long explanatory texts on multi-lingual packaging; the 100% corn-based film pasta-bag is compostable and environmentally benign).

For the Grauers, Nature’s Pasta™ continues a long tradition—based on an old family recipe and using world-famous Canadian durum wheat and farm-fresh free run eggs (from hens fed an all-natural vegetarian diet), the pasta has outstanding flavour. Strict adherence to old-world, small-batch production methods results in gourmet pasta that is setting new standards in taste, texture, and quality. Favoured by chefs and discerning restaurateurs, Nature’s Pasta™ now appears on the menus of some of North America’s best eating establishments. Hermann has also worked with award-winning chefs in producing custom pastas, using specialty grains such as spelt and various natural flavourings. Discriminating pasta connoisseurs can find Nature’s Pasta™ at specialty food wholesalers in the U.S. and select retail food outlets in both Canada and the U.S.—locally, look for Nature’s Pasta™ at Organza, Vic’s (on Pembina), select Sobeys and Safeway locations, and various other fine food stores.

See some of our work here. Visit the Nature’s Farm™ website here.

Winnipeg, Canada

Amidst the doom and gloom of the past week’s international financial and market reports, today’s Winnipeg Free Press features an article entitled ‘Conference board bullish on Winnipeg in 2008,’ which if true, we are happy to hear (though an increasing amount of our work at Circle is for non-local clients, the majority are still here in situ).

According to the Conference Board of Canada’s census for metropolitan areas, Winnipeg will post the third highest growth in gross domestic product (GDP) among Canadian cities this year at 3.4% (trailing only Calgary and Edmonton, and compared with Canada’s 2.6% growth in 2007), the city’s manufacturing output is predicted to expand by 4% (the same as in 2007), the economy will grow 3.4%, and the unemployment rate will drop to 4.3% (from an average of 4.6% in each of the past two years). Not exactly dynamic—but more of the robust stability we have experienced in this fine city for over three decades.

Photo: Winnipeg’s new Esplanade Riel pedestrian bridge (Red River) from the dynamic new website we’ve designed for photographer Mike Grandmaison.

Winnipeg, Canada

We’ve recently designed a series of highly targeted marketing pieces for SMARTBOX Solutions that demonstrate the specialty finishing and old-school craftsmanship of this specialty printer. SMARTBOX (for whom we earlier provided naming and brand services—see here) provides high-end packaging solutions to manufacturers of specialty foods and confections. These initial postcards (which demonstrate tactile finishing techniques such as high-quality embossing, foil stamping, and die-cutting) are phase one of a sequenced direct-marketing campaign.

Toronto, Canada

The latest issue of Applied Arts magazine (#114, September/October 2007) includes a feature by Kevin Brooker entitled “Rise of the West.” The piece starts with an interview with Circle’s Robert L. Peters and includes recent samples of the firm’s communication design work alongside that of a dozen or so other design offices. Applied Arts is Canada’s premiere magazine of visual communications. More information about the issue here or visit the Applied Arts website here.

Winnipeg, Manitoba

The North West Company (NWC) kicked off its 20th anniversary year yesterday with the launch of a new corporate identity designed by Circle. Formerly a division of the Hudson’s Bay Company, North West has grown to become one of Canada’s most successful independent retailers, with over 200 stores across northern and western Canada and Alaska. The new identity was unveiled at an annual recognition event attended by hundreds of the Company’s 6,600 employees.

In a NWC press release, President and CEO Edward Kennedy stated the following: “Our new identity, pictured here, is a strong, vivid symbol of today’s North West Company. It demonstrates our teamwork, our energy, and our purpose. Yes, the voyageur canoe and the paddlers speak to our heritage, but it is a heritage that is much more than a memory of historic events. Indeed, we are the living, thriving successors to a continuous line of enterprising merchants that began in 1668! Very few organizations in the world can make that statement, and we are one of them!”

Circle’s Robert L. Peters and Susan McWatt FitzGerald worked closely with Kennedy and Phil Marriott, NWC’s Marketing Director, in shaping the new identity and developing corporate identity guidelines that delineate correct usage and application of the identity. In addition to the primary corporate signature (featuring paddling voyageurs and a distinctive logotype), Circle also developed identifier variations including a monogram and a motto to reflect NWC’s history and enterprising spirit. A carefully considered visual palette of corporate colours and typefaces helps ensure consistency and cohesiveness in the identity roll-out and maintenance of the Company’s corporate image.

For more information about this project, please contact Robert L. Peters.

San Diego, California

The Design Innovation Institute (Dii) has named Robert L. Peters as a member of its Advisory Board. Founded in San Diego in September 2004 and launched in conjunction with the ”Behind the Design Scenes” event at IKEA in Mission Valley (a showcase of IKEA’s design and marketing impact on consumer behavior worldwide), Dii provides a forum for interdisciplinary design. As stated by founder Calvin Woo, Dii is ”…a catalyst for sensible alliances in the design industry; a venue of experimentation; and a forum for intellectual dialogue.” Dii’s four divisions are comprised of the Design Education program, the Design Museum, Design Research, and the Design Foundation.

For more information, visit www.designinnovationinstitute.org

Rockport, Massachusetts

As stated in Rockport Publishers’ news release, ”Worldwide Identity offers inspiration from 40 countries and showcases more than 300 identities from around the globe from branding the City of Sydney in Australia, to private-label Hong Kong tea, to Brazilian supermarkets, to Levi’s in Singapore, to Danish crown corporation heraldry, and wine in South Africa. Worldwide Identity, compiled in collaboration with Icograda, explains the process of identity design by defining both the ‘Brief’ and the ‘Solution.’ This clear and concise manner assists us in seeing how innovative, distinctive, and appropriate identities arise from designers thorough understanding of mandate and cultural context.”

The book’s author Robert L. Peters states: ”Designers have given shape to the identities of corporations, organizations, locations, events, products, and services that surround us. Information, ideas, and communication are the new currency in today’s virtual world and in this age of ideas, graphic designers play an increasingly vital role in creating economic success, shaping communities, and forming culture. Identity lies at the very core of society, and is the key to our understanding of self. Understanding culture is imperative in avoiding identity crisis and rootlessness, and is a prerequisite for the effective shaping of identities and communication. Everywhere in our shrinking world, we can witness increased homogenization, erosion of indigenous culture, the emergence of serial monotony, and the loss of both individual and collective identity. However, at the same time, the Internet has allowed the world to literally be ”brought to the doorstep” of designers, along with the opportunities this presents.”

Worldwide Identity showcases identity projects from around the world, compiled in association with the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda). The book includes a contextual essay about each of the 40 countries from which works are drawn, along with information including maps, flags, and comparative metrics such as national population, area, languages, and GDP per capita. It also includes directories of Icograda member associations around the globe, and all contributors.

Robert L. Peters is the founding principal of Circle, an international visual communications consultancy based in Winnipeg, Canada. He was president of Icograda from 2001-2003, and is active internationally as a consultant and design strategist, writer, policy advisor, juror, and guest lecturer.

Published by Rockport in partnership with Icograda, Worldwide Identity is available in bookshops worldwide, and can be purchased online. Contact Liz Polay-Wettengel at Rockport Publishers for excerpt material, images, author interviews, or any other information: Tel. +1 978 282 3511, liz@rockpub.com, www.QuaysidePublishingGroup.com

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Worldwide Identity:
Inspired Design from Forty Countries
Author: Robert L. Peters
ISBN: 1-59253-187-3, Rockport Publishers, Inc.
Hardcover, 256 pages, 400 color images.
Size: 228 x 280 mm (9 x 11 inches)
$45.00 US / 29.99 / $63.00 CAN

Read book reviews at Amazon

Read the ‘Identity Matters’ editorial