Vancouver, British Columbia

Circle’s Principal, Robert L. Peters, had the pleasure of serving as the special guest speaker for the 2012 Salazar Awards held at UBC Robson Square on the evening of Friday, 11 May 2012. The GDC/BC Salazar Student Awards, is the annual juried competition and awards-presentation event held to celebrate BC’c most talented and promising design students and their inspirational work. The GDC/BC Salazar Student Awards were established in 1985 to honour Enrique Salazar, a founding member of the Society, a BC National Representative, Partner in Salazar Graphics and a highly regarded member of the BC design community. Among many other achievements, Enrique Salazar remained committed to design education throughout his career and taught Graphic Design at Capilano College until his death in June 1985. Learn more about the Salazar Awards by visiting http://bc.gdc.net/salazar2012/

Rob’s keynote presentation was entitled Aim Higher…

Our globalized society is morphing rapidly from an information era into an age of ideas—at the same time, we flounder in the uncertainty of tumultuous political, social, economic, and ecological instability—even as our fragile planet accelerates towards the edge of survival.

Designers have greatly influenced the shaping of the over-consuming, hyper-stimulated, non-sustainable world we are in—suddenly we find ourselves thrust into a leading role as necessary change-drivers. This presentation will address a shift in design’s role and the power it holds, share diverse perspectives from around the globe, and offer a challenge to “think about our thinking.”

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Yesterday, Circle’s founder Robert L. Peters gave a presentation at TEDxManitoba about Solace House, the super-insulated passive-solar home he designed and built in the woods of eastern Manitoba in 1980, and that he has been living in (without a furnace) ever since. On Wednesday morning he was interviewed by Terry MacLeod on CBC’s Information Radio program (listen here). Rob’s talk comes up at 02:51:53 in TEDxManitoba’s livestream morning session which you can access here.

Individual videos will be processed and put online within the next few weeks.

Winnipeg, Canada

Two months ago we announced the launch of The Canadian Gallery, a collection of exquisite outdoor and nature photographs by our long-time friend and client, Mike Grandmaison. (The Canadian Gallery offers images of our great land specifically selected for their appeal to collectors—as fine art pieces, for corporate decor, and for use as corporate gifts).

The Canadian Gallery’s physical exhibit space opened with an evening reception today at Photo Central, 2nd Floor, 499 Notre Dame Avenue in Winnipeg. Check out some of the imagery on display here.

Above: a few select images from The Canadian Gallery (all photographs ©2011 Mike Grandmaison). Below: designer Adrian Shum caught on “auto-time-lapse” early in the evening.

Winnipeg, Canada

Circle is pleased to announce the launch of The Canadian Gallery, a collection of exquisite outdoor and nature photographs by our long-time friend and client, Mike Grandmaison. The Canadian Gallery offers images of our great land specifically selected for their appeal to collectors—as fine art pieces, for corporate decor, and for use as corporate gifts.

Circle has been working with Mike over the past half year in preparation for the launch of the gallery’s new website (which went live earlier this week) and in preparation for the opening of The Canadian Gallery’s physical exhibit space (which is scheduled to open here in Winnipeg two months from today). Check out the imagery on display here.

Above: a few select images from The Canadian Gallery.
All ©2011 Mike Grandmaison.

Toronto, Canada

An essay that Circle’s principal, Robert L. Peters, compiled for Applied Arts Magazine (pulling from various articles he’s penned over the past years) appears in the current issue (Vol. 25, No. 4, October 2010) with the following pull-quote featured on the cover…

“NEED is the father of thought. I would like to think that designing and dreaming have traveled in lockstep since our species began to walk upright… Graphic design ignites passion, identifies, informs, clarifies, inspires, and enables communication… Design shapes culture and it influences societal values.”

Read or download the whole essay here (384 KB PDF).

Montreal, Canada

INDIGO, the International Indigenous Design Network, is proud to announce that Robert L. Peters has been appointed as an INDIGO ambassador. Rob will bring invaluable design and consulting expertise to INDIGO as well as an extensive international network.

Robert L. Peters, Icograda President 2001-2003, is a designer and principal of Circle, a design consultancy he co-founded in 1976. In addition to practice, he has been actively involved in design education, writing, speaking, advocacy, and professional development for most of his career, including leadership roles within the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC), and the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda).

As Koopman Chair at the School of Art, University of Hartford, Rob worked with Russell Kennedy in 2006 on INDIGO’s inaugural project, MIX06 (Migrant Indigenous Exchange 2006), developed as a collaboration between Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and the University of Hartford in Connecticut, United States.

Rob is active internationally as a consultant and design strategist, policy advisor, writer, juror, and guest lecturer and is based in Winnipeg, Canada.

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INDIGO Ambassadors are individuals committed to creating an awareness of the network, its projects and promoting engagement with designers, stakeholders and the public at large within their communities. INDIGO Ambassadors support the Secretariat in creating a collaborative environment for the exchange of knowledge and ideas. They offer the network local access and insights, help shape projects and initiatives and serve as resources to the network at large.

(reposted from INDIGO news, here) Photo thanks to Ian McCausland.

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).

Toronto, Canada

The latest issue of Applied Arts, Canada’s Visual Communication Magazine (Vol. 24, No. 4, August 2009) has just arrived—in it an in-depth article by Pamela Young on “Green Design” that includes excerpts of an interview with Robert L. Peters. The article by Young acts as “a guide to some of the fundamental issues and options you need to get a handle on or to go green” and lists a variety of accreditation bodies and professional resources to help designers become more savvy.

Churchill, Manitoba

It’s that time of year again… and seasonal greetings are pouring in by the hour. This lovely photo of two Churchill polar bears is from our long-time client Mike Grandmaison, just back from a northern photo shoot. Quoting his e-card (and apropos to the season): “Sometimes I just don’t know whether I’m coming or going.” Cheers, Mike… and stay warm!

the Internet

Robert L. Peters was a presenter on Saturday at <head>, billed as “the world’s first virtual conference—interactive, green, and affordable.” While <head> did have ‘meatspace’ hubs where participants could meet in person (Brighton, London and Manchester in the U.K., Fribourg in Switzerland, and San Francisco in the U.S.), the majority of participants from around the world took part from wherever they happened to be (or in the Second Life hub). Peters’ talk on best practices in working and living as a designer was entitled ‘Do the right thing. Do the thing right,’ using Circle’s Maxim/Dictum as a framework.

Feedback by participants on blogs, Twitter, etc. has been fast and effusive, e.g. “Dude, this is the way conference presentations should be. Hella fun. No messy travel plans, No standing in lines at airports, No rental car misadventures with wrong MapQuest printouts. No need to dress up. No consuming bad closest-restaurant-to-hotel food+coffee. No worrying about hooking up the projectors, no worrying about having enough battery power, or being close to an outlet, or being able to read the slides clearly behind the head of the person in front of you, all the while juggling the cup of coffee and danish and laptop in the lap. No trying to rush to get to the session conveniently located the opposite end of the convention center, only to find the room already at capacity. No staying up late nights adding last minute details to presentations… well okay that’s tradition.” (from TroyWorks).

Interactive, real-time, and global, this web-development and design conference saved tons of emissions by attendees not having to fly anywhere. Learn more about <head> here, and about its founder—the impresario/developer/consultant Aral Balkan here.