FINALLY.

Amazing artist, and lifelong best bud Billy is taking commissions for hand drawn, one of a kind t-shirts! Don’t be crazy. Get one (or 5)

GO HERE

Award Season is here. Vanmag got a couple National nominations. Meanwhile Vanmag and Western Living got a bunch at the Western Magazine Awards. Martin Tessler got 2 noms for a couple shoots we worked on together for Best Photograph (above: To all a good night, and the stairway from WL Condo). I got a nomination for best art direction for an article for ‘Chefs Tips: How to Peel an Artichoke’ from Western Living.  

It’s here! The Spring/Summer 2013 issue of Western Living Condo. This is the bi-annual SIP that I art direct, design and is pretty much my baby from cover to cover. And this issue I decided it was time for a little re-think. In my mind, Condo is the younger, modern, contemporary version of WL. But it’s also a Special issue that only comes out twice a year. I really tried to reflect both of those ideas in my re-think. It wasn’t a full on re-design, as we still use the same typefaces, but I swapped out the weights, from the thin roman, to a thick condensed, and just changed overall flow and look of the issue.

I re-designed the essentials (product pages) to be more dynamic and used pastel-like backgrounds for each. I’m working with pick-up images for these so wanted to find a way to make these pages really pop. We also created a new essentials page where we featured 4 new condo towers being built, and I created this cool collage with the renderings. The black box with the grey drop shadow is something continued through the whole book in all sections.

Next we killed the old ‘room service’ section which was pick up photography of show suites and instead created ‘Personal Space’. A new 3 spread feature where we go inside 3 notable Vancouverites one-room bachelor pads. (the first one featured here the owner wanted to remain anonymous).

For the feature well, I streamlined the designs so that more or less they all had a similar treatment in their layouts. Instead of having more spaces, the idea was to have less condos, and more pages for the ones we feature. Everyone got a DPS photo, and the thought here was to create that feeling that this was a special issue with a more templated design.

And finally the section heds were re-designed with the white condensed helvetica with the stroke shadow behind them. This is the last page of the book where we get to feature one place outside of Vancouver.

Here are the first Few spreads and pages from the Vancouver Magazine 2013 Restaurant awards. I designed the package this year.  There is subsequently about 14 more pages after this (mostly fractionals) with some more illustration, but mostly just listings. All the winners and finalists are on vanmag.com

Portraits by Carlo Ricci. Rooms and food by Martin Tessler. Illustrations by John Burgoyne

Sneak peak at the WL May Issue. Travel Like a Pro. (wish we could have gotten some spreads for this feature; didn’t happen.)

Illustrations by Joel Kimmel

Photo Collage/Illustration I made for Vancouver Magazine about TED talks coming to Vancouver.

The Breakfast Club (A-Z of Breakfast). From the April 2013 issue of Vancouver Magazine. 

Photographs by Shannon Mendes, Clinton Hussey and illustrations by Lauren Tamaki

Adverse Reactions. From the April 2013 issue of Vancouver Magazine.

Portraits by Carlo Ricci

April 2013 Cover for Vancouver Magazine.

Art Direction by Brennan Higginbotham

Food Photograph by Clinton Hussey

5th annual 40 Foodies Under 40 for Western Living. (last page ad removed)

Photographs by Carlo Ricci, Aaron Pedersen, Carey Shaw, and Clinton Hussey, with Food styling by Murray Bancroft. Illustrations by John Burgoyne

From March 2013 issue of Vancouver Magazine. Secrets of the City.

Photographs by Milos Tosic, Illustrations by Eight Hour Day

In Bloom from the March 2013 issue of Vancouver Magazine. The new wave of vegetarian dining in Vancouver.

Photographs by Christine McAvoy, Carlo Ricci, and Evaan Kheraj

Are you not entertained???

More entertaining. This time for Vancouver Magazine. Their Holiday Survival Guide. This was a big undertaking. 3 different shoots. But the opener was especially a feat to put together. Luckily we got the swankest hotel room in Vancouver to work with us.

Opening photo by Martin Tessler, food photographs by Clinton Hussey

From the November 2012 issue of Western Living. Throw a Perfect Party (Without Breaking a Sweat)

Photography by Clinton Hussey. Styling by Murray Bancroft.

‘Personal Space’ from the October 2012 issue of Vancouver Magazine. This was inside the store/home of the owner of Three Century Antiques. I love this shot.

Photography by Lucas Finlay