To Our Deer Friends,

Here’s hoping you relish the yuletide season, making time to meat with old friends, and ketchup on your hobbies.

Now we have to beat it. See you in January!

Happy Holidays!

-Velocity Branding.

P.S. VELOCITYWG will return Jan. 6, with an extra-special entry by Lee Froese.

P.P.S. Mustard.

I was really excited and thankful to be able to attend An Event Apart 2011 in San Francisco last week. I follow A List Apart and own all books in the A Book Apart series — call me a fanboy, but I respect and appreciate the knowledge that the people involved bring to our industry.

On day one, I took a short walk to the gorgeous Palace Hotel where the conference took place. I walked up to registration, looked to my left, and there was none other than Jeffrey Zeldman. He was the first to speak, followed by a long list of web wizards and design gurus. I came in with high expectations and left very satisfied. Every presenter had a different topic and some would build on what others had said.

An Event Apart was very inspiring and extremely informative. I came in with a strong working knowledge and left with a brain completely full of new ideas. Learning about web technologies, when to use web apps vs native apps, developing and designing for mobile, going from an idea to an interface, and better practices, have greatly improved my skill set. Fresh ideas and new approaches are always helpful in my work, and naturally benefit the whole Velocity team.

There were tons of great people that I met throughout the event. There was a very diverse range of attendees — from people working for huge international corporations, to startups, to tiny design studios. I can’t thank Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer enough for putting a conference of this caliber together. I look forward to attending another Event Apart soon.

-Lee Froese

I love reading about history, but once in a while when you go digging into the past, you really learn something as disturbing as it is fascinating. We always start our neighbourhood posts with some basic knowledge of the area backed with some Internet (AKA “lazy”) research. Our Design Intern, Rebecca, from Winnipeg Technical College was reading up on this week’s entry when she came across this article by blogger Reid Dickie.

Who knew that a pleasant suburban neighbourhood in Winnipeg was once a shantytown populated by poor Métis families and rail-riding transients.

VELOCITYWG #9 is “Grant Park” by Design Intern, Rebecca Waczko

Rooster Town was the colourful name for the grim Depression-era village which formed on the outskirts of South Winnipeg. No road connection or running water, no city services, just a rail-line which provided transport in and out of the surrounding bush, and the occasional box-car sold to the poor as makeshift homes.

It’s hard to believe that just eight years after Mayor Stephen Juba had the last residents evicted and the last traces of Rooster Town were bulldozed away, Winnipeg introduced the Western Hemisphere to the state-of-the-art Pan Am Pool built for the 1967 Pan-American Games.

Rebecca’s comments:

When given the task of designing this week’s logo for Grant Park, I thought it was going to be very challenging. But once I started to dig into the history of the area it proved to be quite interesting. I chose to use the Grant’s Scottish tartan since Grant Avenue was named to commemorate Cuthbert James Grant. When I found out the remarkable history about Rooster Town, I felt it only right to pay tribute to this lost suburb. Now every time I visit the mall I’ll find it hard not to remember what it once was.

My fondest memories of Grant Park almost always involve lining up for a hotly-anticipated film (such as 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) For a fine afternoon/evening out, I suggest a nice espresso or a late at LaGrotta Market on Taylor and Waverly, take in the 60s and 70s architecture of the apartments and churches on Grant Avenue, peruse the endless selection of engaging titles at McNally Robinson, and finish off with a holiday blockbuster at the Empire 8.

If it’s a clear night and not too cold, enjoy a little star gazing behind Grant Park High. Listen for the train-whistle and think of Rooster Town.

VELOCITYWG is a weekly design project: simple exercises in unfettered creativity with a common theme that’s near and dear to our hearts: celebrating the streets, suburbs, and cityscape of Manitoba’s capital.

VELOCITYWG, Rebranding One Great City, continues next week.

Comments? jay@velocitybranding.com

East of Pembina Highway and south of Lord Roberts and Riverview, Wildwood fits snugly in a heavily treed oxbow of the Red River. Initially settled by William Pearson in the early 1900s, the area is best known for the Wildwood Park subdivision — one of only two Winnipeg neighbourhoods built on the Radburn system of residential super-blocks.

VELOCITYWG #9 is “Wildwood” by Senior Designer, Colette Boisvert

Wildwood Park was developed in the 40s by Hubert Bird, and designed by Winnipeg’s famous Green Blankstein Russell (the firm behind the Winnipeg International Airport, City Hall, the Centennial Concert Hall, Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, and others). Like West Norwood, houses in Wildwood Park have no front street, only a sidewalk and a back lane, giving the area an unusual and wonderfully park-like feel.

Perched on Wildwood’s southernmost point is St. John’s-Ravenscourt School, a prestigious university prep-school for girls and boys. Founded as the Red River Mission School in 1820, the school has undergone considerable changes in its near-two century history (Ravenscourt was once located in Armstrong’s Point). The school is an anchoring landmark in the area, and its fine, wooded grounds and secluded castle-quality make it the closest thing Winnipeg has to Hogwart’s.

From Pembina, (thermos of hot cocoa firmly in hand) take Riverwood or Waterford Avenue up to the Viscount Alexander School on Point Road. Stroll up North Drive around the scenic Wildwood Golf Course and down again to SJR (Wave to any local Muggles you might encounter). From South Drive, cut up through the middle of Wildwood Park, marvel at the sheer number of trees and picturesque homes, and then cross up and over to Manchester Boulevard.

Wonder why more neighbourhoods aren’t built on the Radburn model.

Repeat as necessary.

VELOCITYWG is a weekly design project: simple exercises in unfettered creativity with a common theme that’s near and dear to our hearts: celebrating the streets, suburbs, and cityscape of Manitoba’s capital.

VELOCITYWG, Rebranding One Great City, continues next week.

Comments? jay@velocitybranding.com

It’s difficult to tell when it first developed its reputation as Winnipeg’s most… how can I put this… “bumpkinesque” neighbourhood. For years, the area was an independent town that grew with the development of the Grand Trunk Pacific and National Transcontinental Railway’s repair shops. The name itself is a portmanteau of “Transcontinental” and “Strathcona” (as in Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona, railway pioneer).

VELOCITYWG #8 is “Transcona” by Interactive Designer, Lee Froese.

Firebirds up on blocks, pink flamingos, beer guts and big hair, have been the staples of jokes about “Trashcona” for many years. This working-class neighbourhood huddled on Regent between Plessis and the Perimeter has unfairly (yes, I said it) been a source of humour for the rest of Winnipeg since it amalgamated with Unicity in ’72.

Most people I know from Transcona are pretty good-humoured, salt-of-the earth folks who laugh along with the jokes, and kind of embrace the “redneck” image. Like any North American neighbourhood founded on a single heavy-industry, the social and economic landscape is changing. Today, you’re just as likely to find someone in Transcona working as a graphic designer as working for the railway. And don’t forget that the Second Greatest Canadian, Terry Fox, was born in T-Cona.

What I like about Transcona is that it never quite integrated into the rest of Winnipeg, and keeps its small-town charm. Regent Avenue is quite nice when you get past the strip malls and car dealers, past the “Hi Neighbour” into “downtown” Transcona — a lovely tree-lined street dotted with small businesses, murals, and mom ’n’ pop restaurants.

Check out the Hi Neighbour Festival in June, the old locomotive on display at Kiwanis Park, or the Transcona Historical Museum. Grab a slice of pie at Dal’s Drive Inn, or stop in at Club Regent for some black jack, a tropical cocktail or two in the Jaguar Room, and then gape in amazement at the hundreds of colourful salt-water fish in their 150,000 litre walk-through aquarium.

But don’t expect to see any pink flamingos.

VELOCITYWG is a weekly design project: simple exercises in unfettered creativity with a common theme that’s near and dear to our hearts: celebrating the streets, suburbs, and cityscape of Manitoba’s capital.

VELOCITYWG, Rebranding One Great City, continues next week.

Comments? jay@velocitybranding.com