FIFTY YEARS AGO, graphic design meant two things: working in print and kicking out mind-blowing creative. Wait, make that three: insisting on your own vision. The brash antics of Madison Avenue’s “Big Idea” branding campaigns, personified by George Lois and his “my way or the highway” client dynamic, have long since been replaced by a […]
Gord’s triumph of narrative
Originally published in August 2016 in Blog
Gord Downie in his last concert by Alison Garwood-Jones When I was a student at Queen’s University in the late 1980s and early nineties, my tape collection alternated between love anthems (Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey), girl bands with matte lips and cool hair cuts (Wilson Phillips) and duos with no hair cuts (Indigo Girls). […]
This is it
Originally published in August 2016 in Blog
Cleaning up the remains of our parents’ days has been a long process for my brothers and me. Five years to be exact. From left to right: Alison, Richard and Peter. We’re probably watching Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. Yesterday, as I was studying the photographic evidence of our childhoods inside a non-descript industrial storage […]
Tuesday sketchbook
Originally published in August 2016 in Blog