the fruits of imagination

A La Cart – Designing Toronto’s newest brand

Here at Leo, we love our fair city of Toronto.  So when were asked to help out on a new project aiming to bring diversity to the street food of the city, we were more than thrilled to help out.

The Toronto A La Cart program, run by the City, is meant to bring the diverse ethnic foods of Toronto out of the restaurants and on to our streets, to offer a healthier alternative to the hot dog, for those who want it, and to show that we are a city sophisticated and multicultural enough to present its residents with a kaleidoscope of street food offerings.

 

With this opportunity in mind, we set out to come up with an identity for the project.  The resulting graphic design we developed is grounded by the number four.  Four has great significance in terms of food and diversity.  The four corners of the world (north, south, east, west), the four taste sensations (sweet, sour, salty, bitter), the four main utensils used when eating (fork, spoon, knife, chopsticks).  It uses four circles, symbolizing plates, and grounds the utensils within them to create a graphic representation of the word ‘Cart’.  The vibrant colour palette was inspired by actual vegetables and spices to reflect different cultures and ethnicity.

 

The identity can be found on the actual street carts throughout Toronto. I decided to go sample some down at

Nathan Phillips Square today…my picture doesn’t accurately reflect the crowds.  There’s nothing like some good chicken Biryani and a fresh piece of fruit to enjoy out in the sun.  I could get used to this.  Hopefully some carts will pop up near our offices mid-town!

Canadian Marketing Blog Rankings

Good stuff is in the works in Canada (apologies to all the international readers for the nationalist interlude; normal service will resume shortly).  July is Canada month, our chief social networker Sean Moffitt is rounding up the troops, and a new likemind Toronto coffee morning is about to kick off. 

In keeping with all this Canadian-ness, it occured to me the other day that there's no ranking of the top Canadian marketing blogs, like Mack Collier's Top 25 Marketing Blogs or ToddAnd's Power 150.  Of course, both of those lists carry Canadian blogs, but no one (that I could find) has ever compiled a Canadian ranking. Which is a shame, because there are some great Canadian discussions going on out there.

So I've taken a stab at it.  If you're so inclined, henceforth the Canadian Marketing Blog Rankings will live on their own permanent page here.

Oh Canada

image via

Today is Canada Day.  Happy birthday, Canada.

It's an interesting time to be a marketer in Canada. Many divisions of global companies have seen their decision-making power lessen over the past decade. Often we see strategy, and even creative ideas, get decided in head offices and mandated, giving little room (and lots of shackles) for original thinking and work. And of the Canadian-based companies that are left, most simply don't do marketing that earns fame outside of these borders.

The always thoughtful and prolific Grant McCracken recently wrote a few pieces called "Oh Canada, Poor Canada" (he's Canadian) including the observation that Canada has a "present obscurity on the world stage." He also pointed to a Conference Board of Canada report that concluded:

"[T]oo often we trail the pack.  The failure to innovate is a large part of the explanation for our mediocrity -- a mediocrity that is hampering what we can do and what we can be."

Is it really all that bad? I do think there's some truth to these points, especially over the past decade. But today, looking at the marketing world, there are some Canadians that are fighting the tide to do world-class work.

One need only look as far as the Dove "Evolution" spot from Unilever Canada and Ogilvy Toronto which won an unprecendented two grand prix at Cannes last week and has been picked up around the world (congrats to Tim, Mike, Janet, Nancy, and everyone else at Ogilvy, plus Stephanie & Mark at Unilever). These days Taxi is frequently mentioned as one of the most creative agencies in the world. Calgary-born Critical Mass is one of the most well-regarded interactive agencies in the world. And here at Leo Toronto, we won the first D&AD Black Pencil ever given to a website, on the way to making us the most awarded interactive agency in the world last year. We now also run several P&G brands for all of North America, export campaigns on Kellogg's and Wrigley around the world, and lead some Samsung work globally. 

But also, the Canadian marketing scene has really stepped up with some fantastic contributions to the marketing blogscape. So in honour of Canada Day, here are a few great Canadian blogs to add to your reading:

Chroma
My name is kate
The client side blog
Canuck Flack
Experience Planner
Craphammer
Buzz Canuck
Teehan+Lax (one of the only other Canadian agencies with a blog)

These are just some of my favourites - but for a more comprehensive list of Canadian marketing blogs check out Sean's helpful compilation here, or Kate's blogroll.

So is Canada hampered by mediocrity? Not by this evidence. On the contrary, it looks like we might just be on the cusp of a Canadian rennaisance. Oh Canada, indeed.