Back when we lived in Toronto, the daily walk to my office job involved walking across Union Station, where every week I was bombarded with direct promotional items from big brand companies: bags of Uncle Ben’s Rice, Coke Zero cans, chewing gum, Kleenex, Shampoo & Conditioner sample, bottles of Frank’s Hot . . . → Read More: Mile High Raccoon Promo]]>

Back when we lived in Toronto, the daily walk to my office job involved walking across Union Station, where every week I was bombarded with direct promotional items from big brand companies: bags of Uncle Ben’s Rice, Coke Zero cans, chewing gum, Kleenex, Shampoo & Conditioner sample, bottles of Frank’s Hot Sauce, Aero and Hersey’ chocolate bars, Kellogg’s Fibre Bar, Red Bull & various juice boxes, Colgate toothpaste, Fresh Pasta from Pizza Hut, free prescription glasses (for real: I still wear them everyday!), a rose from CityTV’s The Bachelor and the famous Avocado from Avocados Mexico that made it to this blog (read more here). Here in Ottawa, not so much luck in getting direct promotion stuff! In spite of working right downtown, the only direct promotion I came across before today was around the time Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was released. People dressed in giant playing cards were hanging around Metcalfe and Albert Street, distributing playing cards deck in nice little tin boxes to people who could answer trivia questions about Alice. I  was thrilled, got the question right and proudly brought home the pack of cards… All that to say that today, when I saw a giant blue balloon in the sky and people dressed as air hostess everywhere I felt like I was once again living in a big city and was very excited to see what that was all about. Sadly though, it wasn’t as extraordinary as I expected it to be. Nothing eatable (first disappointment) and nothing useful to me (second disappointment) as unfortunately we don’t have any trip planned to New York, Boston or Chicago. Indeed, the air hostesses were simply distributing cards announcing a Porter promotion: 50% off any flight booked before September 7. Past the initial disappointment, I actually looked at the card that was handed in to me and realized that, as always, Porter had paid a special attention to design and create once again an attractive piece featuring its now famous raccoon.

(Short parentheses here: does someone know why Porter choose a raccoon as their company’s icon? Does that animal have any flying or traveling particularities that I’m unaware of? On this website we can see more branding that the London/Zurich/NYC/Hong Kong/Tokyo-based firm Winkreative created for Porter, but nowhere do they mention the story behind Mr.Porter. As cute as I think it is, I’m still struggling to understand why the airline uses that particular rodent… End of parentheses.)

Back to the card, it’s printed on nice stock and uses a lot of red, which is pretty unusual for Porter who normally primarily uses blue and white in its materials. I guess the stage curtains would not have had the same impact if they hadn’t been red – especially on the Globe and Mail website because, as you can see below, the “Porter party” continued on the web!

It was a well targeted campaign: the main clientele of Porter (executives who travels frequently for business purposes) received the card this morning on their way to work, probably didn’t pay much attention to it and dropped it in their briefcase, got to the office, turned on their computer and visited one of Canada’s most read newspaper website, saw the Porter ads everywhere and remembered the cards they were handed in earlier. Then, if all goes according to the airline’s plan, they gave the card to their secretary/admin assistant for them to book their next flight(s) right away using the discount code… that is of course if they’re well-trained execs wanting to save their business some money! Quite a straightforward marketing approach…

However, I have to mention that there was an annoying little mistake on the back of the card: a bullet is missing between Thunder Bay and Windsor. Not a big deal, probably a very few detailed-oriented people (like me!) noticed it but since I’m sure that Porter paid a premium price to get this card printed you’d expected typos like this to get caught before production. In spite of that oversight, the flyer (no pun intended) will still make it to my collection of pretty printed things to keep.

Vick @ Yellow Car Design

A few weeks ago we designed this advert for Vero Moda, a women fashion label part of the Bestseller family of clothing brands. It was a project very different from the ones that we normally work on: extremely tight deadline, concept needing to be fully photography-based, dealings with various departments, . . . → Read More: FASHION Magazine – Nice Vero Moda advert (designed by us!)]]>

Vero Moda @ The Bay ad

A few weeks ago we designed this advert for Vero Moda, a women fashion label part of the Bestseller family of clothing brands. It was a project very different from the ones that we normally work on: extremely tight deadline, concept needing to be fully photography-based, dealings with various departments, high-resolution printing requirements involved, etc. We’re used to a full creative process that includes brainstorming, drawings of thumbnails and drafts, back and forth with the client to get their feedback and so on… With this ad project, we had to get our arses Photoshops in gear and go straight to the drawing board in order to produce something on time!

Overall it turned out to be a great experience, especially when  FASHION Magazine came out in store last Monday: we rushed to the store to get a copy so that we could see “our” ad printed on shiny paper! We were quite proud to see a design created byYellow Car Designprinted next to an advert for a prestigious Christian Dior fragrance

I recently re-read Made You Look by Stefan Sagmeister, one of my favourite designers. He’s not one of my favourites because of his work (rather ugly, sometimes!), but I like him because of the thinking behind his designs and I just find that the stuff he writes in his books/interviews is quite hilarious and . . . → Read More: YCD Paris]]>

YCD Paris

I recently re-read Made You Look by Stefan Sagmeister, one of my favourite designers. He’s not one of my favourites because of his work (rather ugly, sometimes!), but I like him because of the thinking behind his designs and I just find that the stuff he writes in his books/interviews is quite hilarious and entertaining. He once described some of his past work as being “a remarkably pure piece of shit”; anyone with this way of describing things deserves my respect! Anyways, the link between Sagmeister and the image above is that in Made You Look the designer described how his great uncle, Otto Sagmeister, owned a tiny little “home-based” distillery in Vienna, but decided to create advertising and stationery for his business that pictured a great fancy building with many chimneys and even described an association with the very noble French region of Cognac (even if Otto had never set foot in France!). That was in early 1900′s – well before Photoshop – and certainly contributed to Stefan Sagmeister’s great creativity and wittiness! Reading this inspired me to follow Otto’s steps and create a listing for YCD that shows our, hummm, office. You thought we were located in Canada? Uh, no, no… we’re actually in Paris, in a great Haussmanian building near the Louvre… (we wish!!!).

Sagmeister: Made You Look

YCD Paris (v.f.)

J’ai récemment relu le livre Made You Look de Stefan Sagmeister (un de mes designers graphiques préférés). Il n’est pas parmis mes favoris pour son travail (parfois c’est affreux!), mais bien parce que j’aime sa façon de penser et ce qu’il dit dans ses entrevues et livres est souvent hilarant. Il a lui-même décrit l’un de ses anciens projets comme étant “de la merde remarquablement pure”… Cette grande humilité mérite certainement d’être respectée! Mais bon, le lien entre la photo ci-dessus et Sagmeister tient du fait que, dans Made You Look, le designer décrit comment son grand oncle, Otto Sagmeister, avait décidé de créer une affiche pour faire la publicité de sa petite “distillerie maison” viennoise. Or, sur l’annonce, un gros bâtiment aux allures de château avec plusieurs cheminées était illustrée, et on mentionnait même une affiliation avec la réputable région française de Cognac (même si Otto n’avait jamais mis les pieds en France!). C’était au début du 20ième siècle – bien avant Photoshop – et ça a sûrement contribué à la créativité et à l’humour de Stefan Sagmeister. En tout cas, relire cette histoire m’a donné le goût de créer une publicité pour YCD montrant nos, ahem, bureaux. Vous pensiez que nous étions au Canada? Hum, non non… notre studio est à Paris, dans une belle bâtisse Hausmanienne à deux pas du Louvre… (si seulement c’était vrai!!!).

Vick.

Is it just us, or is this M&M advert really weird? First, what mum is crazy enough to force an hamburger the size of her little child’s head down the little fella’s throat? Hasn’t she heard of the morbidly obese children syndrome? Second, why does the semi-proud, semi-disgusted dad look as if he’s . . . → Read More: Creepy M&M family]]>

Eat your burger!!

Is it just us, or is this M&M advert really weird? First, what mum is crazy enough to force an hamburger the size of her little child’s head down the little fella’s throat? Hasn’t she heard of the morbidly obese children syndrome? Second, why does the semi-proud, semi-disgusted dad look as if he’s been photoshopped from another picture to this one? Finally, why is the little girl so disgusted? Are M&M’s burger that horrible? Just wandering… Weird choice of picture for the latest M&M newsletter (who, by the way, is Canada’s largest retail chain of specialty frozen foods)!

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Troublant….

Est-ce que c’est nous ou bien est-ce que cette photo, choisie par les aliments M&M pour illustrer leur dernière campagne, est un peu troublante? En effet, quelle mère indigne force son enfant à manger un hamburger aussi gros que sa tête? N’a-t’elle pas entendu parler de l’obésité infantile? Aussi, pourquoi est-ce que le père, l’air mi-fier, mi-dégoûté, semble-t’il avoir été “placé” sur la photo à l’aide d’un logiciel de photomontage? Finalement, on dirait que la petite fille va être malade… Les hamburgers de chez M&M sont-ils si dégoutants? En tout cas, drôle de choix de photo… pas très alléchant pour un magasin qui, soit dit en passant, est le plus grand distributeur d’aliments congelés au Canada!

We came across this billboard during the weekend and were somewhat disappointed. It is as if the designers who did it had a really good idea of ‘hot meeting cold’, but sort of ran out of time in the process so got a classroom of high school art students to do the job . . . → Read More: Solstice Chewing Gum – Ugly Billboard]]>

Billboard-Solstice Chewing Gum

We came across this billboard during the weekend and were somewhat disappointed. It is as if the designers who did it had a really good idea of ‘hot meeting cold’, but sort of ran out of time in the process so got a classroom of high school art students to do the job in papier-mâché. It’s a shame, cause really it’s a good idea and could have worked very well; but unfortunately is was badly implemented so it looks ugly. However, even if it’s hard to tell if the ‘ugliness’ was done on purpose or not we thought that it was worth taking a picture and sharing it with the world!

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Solstice – Panneau Publicitaire

Nous avons aperçu ce panneau publicitaire il y a quelques jours et avons été un peu déçus par son apparence. C’est comme si les designers en charge de sa conception avaient eu une super bonne idée au départ, mais en cours de route ont manqué de temps et ont dû faire appel à une classe d’élèves en art visuel pour finir le projet en papier mâché! C’est dommage, parce que vraiment, la rencontre du ‘chaud et froid’ aurait pu fonctionner et être visuellement intéressante si elle avait été correctement exécutée…

Here at yellow car design, we’re not the biggest Coors Light fans but we appreciate good advertising when we see it. So when we saw that bus shelter on King Street, we thought that it was very cool (haha). We also think that it’s a shame that this . . . → Read More: Coors Light – Bus Shelter on King Street]]>

Coors Light - Bus Shelter on King Street

Here at yellow car design, we’re not the biggest Coors Light fans but we appreciate good advertising when we see it. So when we saw that bus shelter on King Street, we thought that it was very cool (haha). We also think that it’s a shame that this advertising is hidden away far enough from Yonge Street that most people won’t witness it while their much less intelligent advertising campaign in BC about their beer being ‘Colder than most people from Toronto’ makes the national news just because some people can’t take a joke.

 All we can say is the shelter works: the weather here in Toronto has been pretty tropical of late with high humid temperatures and every time we walk in past it always puts us in the mood for a cold and refreshing beer!

Also shown is our cat Steve proving how well the advertisement works by proudly posing with a cold one.

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Nous ne sommes pas des adeptes de Coors Light, mais on sait reconnaître une bonne publicité lorsqu’on en voit une. Lorsqu’on a apercu cet arrêt d’autobus sur la rue King, nous avons trouvé l’idée très rafraîchissante (ahah).  C’est dommage que l’abribus soit situé sur une rue un peu moins achanlandée. Beaucoup de gens ne le verront pas et se souviendront seulement de la publicité que Coors Light a fait récemment en Colombie-Britannique qui proclamait que la bière Coors Light est ‘plus froide que les gens de Toronto.’

 Cette publicité en a fait des vagues, et on en a parlé aux nouvelles nationales… simplement car certaines personnes n’ont pas le sens de l’humour.

Tout ce que nous pouvons dire est que, selon nous, l’effort mis dans le design de l’abribus porte fruit: chaque fois que nous le voyons il nous donne l’envie de boire une bonne bière froide! Steve le chat, lui, pose fièrement avec sa cannette de Coors Light, prouvant l’efficacité de la pub!