Signals Designs 2010 Winter Games Commemorative Stamps
Capturing the Canadian experience of the 2010 Winter Games in a postage stamp was truly an Olympic challenge. This February, Canada Post will issue a set of two commemorative stamps designed by Signals to celebrate the Vancouver 2010 Games.
“For the commemorative stamps, our goal was to capture the emotions of fans and athletes alike,” Kosta explains. “Inspired by the Olympic spirit of ‘mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play,’ we wanted to reflect this spirit in the faces of young Canadians.
“Above all, we wanted to create iconic images of our collective experience of the Games. The iconic leaf and the colours immediately identify these as Canadian events. And the images of young people in toques and painted faces cheering on their favorite teams and athletes are quintessentially Canadian.”
Signals’ Olympic work began in 2003 with the design of the international marketing books that were delivered to the IOC members to support the Vancouver bid. Last year, John and Kosta designed the Sports of the 2010 Winter Games stamps that showcased curling, snowboard, freestyle skiing, bobsleigh and ice sledge hockey.
Keith Martin, who designed the commemorative stamps with Kosta, says, “Anticipating all this happening in our own backyard was certainly an underlying influence for the design team. The excitement here has been building for years, and I think that comes out in our work. This commemorative issue wraps up the memories and experiences we will take from the games and brings everything home, so to speak.”
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Click below for more -
» The official Canada Post release about this stamp launch
» View article in Canada Post’s Details Magazine (Flash required)
» History of Signals stamps in National Archives of Canada
Resources:
» Download Low Resolution Images [JPG's - 215KB]
» High resolution images available upon request
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
During Movember (the month formally known as November) three bro’s from Signals decided to put their dignity at risk by growing moustaches.
Why? We wanted to be part of the global Movember movement which, each year, aims to raise awareness and funds to find a cure for prostate cancer.
Our team of talented mo-growing MoBro’s started with four eager members. Sadly one of us couldn’t grow more than baby fluff and shamefully resigned from the team. The successful members (left to right) are Keith Martin, Mike Savage and David Bélanger.
We started the month clean shaven and dedicated ourselves to growing the best 4-week Mo possible. We tried several tricks to encourage the growth of our Mo’s, including but not limited to: prayer, herbal hair growth lotion, heat lamps and electric shocks. These all proved to be amateur techniques once we discovered that the most effective hair-growing aid was attaching a vacuum cleaner to our upper lips.
At the 18-day mark we felt our Mo’s were thick enough to show the world. We snapped a couple of images and promoted our team, “Grow A Legacy”, to friends, family, coworkers, clients and twitter followers.
We received a great response. Thanks to many generous donors, team “Grow A Legacy” has raised just under $900. If you’re bummed out that you missed the opportunity to contribute to this great cause, don’t fret! Because even though Movember has technically ended, donations are still being accepted.
Long live the Mo.
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Links
Grow A Legacy is named after Signals innovative cancer fundraising website www.leafalegacy.ca
Leaf A Legacy was awarded Honourable Mention at the 2009 Design Exchange Awards on
November 24th.
For the Signals team, it’s especially gratifying to win recognition in this tough, national competition for the site we designed to help raise funds for our BC Cancer Foundation client.
The Design Exchange Awards are Canada’s only award program to judge design by results, balancing function, aesthetics, and economic success. The Awards promote Canadian design excellence and recognize the critical role of design in all types of organizations including large and small businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and the public sector.
Inspired by our desire to support cancer research and to mark our 25th year in business, the Leaf A Legacy site is built around a magical illustration, created by Associate Creative Director, John Belisle. John and David Bélanger, Signals Head of Interactive, attended the awards ceremony in Toronto.
A special exhibit showcasing all the award winners will be on display at The Design Exchange until February 21, 2010. The Design Exchange is located in the former Toronto Stock Exchange, a designated heritage building, at 234 Bay Street.
For more on this year’s winners click here.
We’re happy to report that Leaf A Legacy is attracting lots of attention in the media these days.
Recently, Theresa Lalonde, CBC Vancouver Online and Interactive Reporter, visited the studio to talk about our unique fundraising site for the BC Cancer Foundation with Robyn and our BC Cancer Foundation client, Nick Locke, Vice President of Development. The interview aired on the October 15th local news and on CBC radio.
The increase in online giving is big news for charitable organizations like the Foundation, and we’re very proud to lead the way with Leaf A Legacy.
In just over a month, 52 new leaves have been added to the interactive tree, representing 52 direct donations to the BC Cancer Foundation.
In other news, a full page ad for Leaf A Legacy appeared in the October 16th edition of The Globe and Mail, sponsored by the newspaper.
Watch the CBC Vancouver interview:
All across the world social media junkies and bloggers have been posting up a storm, today is Blog Action Day 09. The theme is Climate Change. But it is not about how one blog make a difference, with 8,000 blogs and an estimated combined readership of 15 million people, today’s online event will touch so many spheres of influence. CNN is billing today’s event “as the largest-ever social change event on the Web.”
As designers and communicators who work with our clients from the inception of projects we guide them in strategics shifts in both materials and messaging – we can contribute to more sustainable solutions for the future.
For years now Signals has encouraged wiser paper choices, seeking the best FSC certifications, the highest recycled content and more. The days of the french fold are over folks! In our business practices Kosta has used sustainable building materials such as bamboo as much as possible.
Lately we’re able to peruse not just wiser paper options, but almost no paper options. The BC Cancer Foundation, always a pioneers in donor relationships needed to reach more people without printing massive physical reports and reducing mailing costs. We helped them create their full Report to Donors online. Their required printed companion piece was reduced dramatically in size and quantities. While the donor lists, video’s and photographs are shared all over the province online.
For more information on today’s Blog Action Day you can follow @blogactionday on twitter or search for #BAD09 and see what the buzz is all about.