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
Silver Heights is the area north of Portage Avenue, south of Ness, and situated between Moray and Mt. Royal Road. It takes its name from what should have been the home of the first Lieutenant-Governor of Rupert’s Land, William McDougall, which in turn took its name from the silver poplars that once blanketed the area. McDougall never actually lived there, owing to one Louis Riel and the Red River Rebellion.
VELOCITYWG #5 is “Silver Heights” by Interactive Designer, Lee Froese
Adams George Archibald, Manitoba’s first Lieutenant-Governor, also refused to live there at first.
“The main and permanent objection to a residence at Silver Heights, (and this applies in a special manner to the Winter Season) is its distance from Winnipeg. I should have been obliged either to keep an office in Winnipeg, and make a daily trip to town, which with the temperature, as we have recently had it, at 40° below zero, would not have been a very pleasant thing to do, or else compel every person wishing to see me, to add to his journey to Winnipeg, a further distance of five miles to go to Silver Heights.”
-Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, February 1871
It’s heartwarming to know that Manitobans have been complaining about going about their business in the cold for at least 150 years now.
As Winnipeg expanded after WWII, suburban areas like Silver Heights slowly came into their prime, with the Greatest Generation settling down into modern bungalows and giving birth to the Boomers. Architect W.D. Lount and his father Frank, who played a role in building Tuxedo, were two of the area’s principle developers. In addition to houses, Lount built the retro-marvelous Silver Heights Apartments, Park Towers, and Park Terrace.
Stop in for a cold beer and some ribs (or a Hughie burger) at the iconic Silver Heights Restaurant and Lounge (ironically, a few blocks east of the official boundary) opened in 1957 by the Siwicki family. The neighbourhood gem opened the same year as Silver Heights Collegiate, which was unfortunately demolished in 2007. After supper, take a drive down Mt. Royal Road past Trail Avenue and the Silver Heights Gates (A City of Winnipeg Grade III heritage site), and look at the Christmas lights speckling the neighbourhood as jet planes carrying holiday travelers come in for a landing overhead.
For added affect, play Vince Guaraldi’s, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
You can almost imagine Winnipeg, 1965.
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
Most Winnipeggers know Armstrong’s Point as “East Gate” for one of the neighbourhood’s three primary streets running off of Cornish Avenue.
Armstrong’s Point has always been an exclusive community. Built along an oxbow in the Assiniboine River, the area is naturally secluded. Although its first houses were constructed in the 1880s, it wasn’t until 1910 when residents erected the characteristic gates which still stand today.
VELOCITYWG #4 is “Armstrong’s Point” by Velocity Creative Director, Karla Burr.
Armstrong’s Point is one of those neighbourhoods that you can’t help but admire. Similar to Crescentwood, the little enclave touts a gaggle of architectural marvels from Winnipeg’s late 19th and early 20th Centuries — beautifully complemented with handsome old trees, tangled bushes, and manicured lawns.
Karla’s comments:
I had no idea that East and West Gate were actually called Armstrong’s Point. I couldn’t ignore the fact that everyone knows the area as East and West Gate — so I created a logo type that has wrought-iron details and looks like the archway of a gate. That also explains the E and W at the top.
Although spring and summer are lovely in East Gate… er… I mean Armstrong’s Point, nothing comes close to the beauty of the neighbourhood in mid to late fall, or just after a fresh dusting of November snow. Walking a complete circuit around the area won’t take long, so be sure to stop in at the Cornish Library, built in 1914 with funds donated by U.S. industrialist Andrew Carnegie and named for Winnipeg’s first mayor, Francis Cornish. It’s just about the best place possible to while away an hour or two and get lost in a good mystery novel.
VELOCITYWG is a weekly (well, we aim for 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
“The numbers we’re experiencing are unprecedented,” said Lorne Perrin, VP Marketing & Park Services with the Assiniboine Park Conservancy (APC) which organizes the event, now in its 16th year. “We’re absolutely thrilled with the enthusiasm for this year’s Safeway Boo at the Zoo and we love to hear that people are enjoying the new aspects of the event.”
Read the Winnipeg Free Press story here.
What the article doesn’t mention is the extensive use of troll magic, courtesy of Icky, Boo’s new mascot. Icky was discovered on a recent zoological expedition to Northern Manitoba by Velocity Designer Colette Boisvert. The big purple troll was lured out of his cozy cave with the promise of all the free chocolate bars, cold pizza, and sweat socks he could eat.
Boo at the Zoo runs till Sunday!
The work keeps coming and we continue to welcome new clients and expand current relationships! For this we are starting to look for some additional help around the office.
We are looking for a Print Production Designer and a WordPress Developer/Designer. Click for more.
In addition to the record, feedback has been monstrously positive! We like to think that Icky the Troll, discovered in the remote wilderness of Northern Manitoba by Velocity senior designer Colette Boisvert, may have had a hand in boosting attendance. How? Troll magic.
Here’s a shot of Icky with Colette (left) and Creative Director Karla Burr (right).
Icky loves the ladies.
Safeway Boo at the Zoo runs till Sunday, October 30.
The name Pembina is derived from the French Canadian name for the berry of the viburnum trilobum or Highbush Cranberry. Pembina Highway* takes it name from the old Pembina Trail, which led from what we now call Winnipeg to Fort Pembina, a fur trading post run by the North West Company.
VELOCITYWG #3 is “Pembina Strip” by Velocity Interactive Designer, Lee Froese.
Pembina Strip is roughly the area north of Bishop Grandin and south of Chevrier Boulevard and Crescent Drive. It’s a small area of the city, and not one that most Winnipeggers would normally consider iconic or representative of the city, or talk about with out-of-towners.
But it’s not without its charms. Home to Celebrations Dinner Theatre, numerous bars and ethnic restaurants, apartment blocks, shops and amenities, it’s a bustling community at the crossroads of two major transportation arteries, and minutes from the University of Manitoba.
Lee’s comments:
The logo came out looking old-timey and that’s what I wanted. It’s a tip of the hat to the Pembina Trail and the early settlers using horse-drawn carriages.
Enjoy a coffee, a bubble tea, or a beer at one of the local pubs, take a walk through Plaza Drive Park, hangout dockside at the Pony Corral, or get a late night slice of pie.
Although personally, I miss the old Cinema City.
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
*Added fun fact: Just across the street from the Round Table near Pembina and Taylor, is a nifty little plaque commemorating Winnipeg’s 1974 centennial, and the 75th anniversary of the Pine to Palm Highway.
With the completion of Highway 75 (Lord Selkirk Highway) in 1899, the first continuous roadway opened from Winnipeg to New Orleans, Louisiana, dubbed the “Pine to Palm Highway” — no doubt because in those days, New Orleans has an abundance of palm trees, and Winnipeg had a number of wealthy pine-flavoured candy manufacturing barons with the surname “Pine.”
Really. Look it up.
It’s no secret that I love history, and I love to get lost in the Manitoba Historical Society’s online archives. Researching today’s entry, I discovered this little gem in reference to Crescentwood:
“Socially, Winnipeg takes the palm. The city has scores of palatial mansions inhabited by wealthy men of plain, practical ideas, whose greatest aim is the work of building up commercially, industrially, socially and morally the city they live in. No claim can be made in Winnipeg for austere, alleged saints. The people are too active and practical for that.” — An unnamed writer, 1903
VELOCITYWG #2 is “Crescentwood” by Velocity Senior Designer, Colette Boisvert.
Founded as a community in the 1890s, Crescentwood is named for the home of John Henry Munson, owner of the largest lot on the Assiniboine River at the time, and developed by C.H. Enderton.
From the outset, Crescentwood was deemed the best place in Winnipeg to live, and many of the city’s elite emigrated from their homes and mansions in the South Broadway-Assiniboine area to the new suburb.
If Winnipeg’s Downtown has traditionally been the city’s engine of commerce, then the steering wheel has definitely been Crescentwood. Some of the city’s most famous business leaders, politicians and luminaries lived and grew up in Crescentwood. Names like Ashdown, Richardson, Roblin, and more, crop up continuously as you read about the area’s history.
Colette’s comment on the wordmark: “I wanted it to look expensive.”
Indeed. Home to some of the finest private residences in the city, Crescentwood continues to be the neighbourhood of choice for (in no particular order) the active, the practical, and the wealthy.
Grab a coffee at Stella’s on Sherbrook, and take a stroll across the Maryland Bridge, south on Wellington to Munson Park. Then loop around at Grosvenor to Ruskin Row, and watch the leaves fall from a bench in Enderton Park. No better way to spend a weekend afternoon.
Crescentwood in autumn takes the palm.
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
As mentioned on Friday, VELOCITYWG is our new, 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.
Our first entry is “St. Norbert” by Velocity Creative Director, Karla Burr.
Winnipeg’s southernmost neighbourhood, St. Norbert is named for the first Bishop of St. Boniface, Joseph-Norbert Provencher, home to the extremely popular St. Norbert Farmers’ Market, and landmarks such as the Trappist Monastery, Aisle Richot, and the St. Norbert Catholic Parish.
Karla’s comments:
I grew up very near to St. Norbert, and as teenagers we would go and hang out at the ruins, maybe do some underage drinking maybe enjoy a soda and discuss the works of Proust. So naturally, when I think of St. Norbert, I think of the Trappist Monastery — the image in my mind of a summer evening with the warm sun hitting the face at the golden hour.
I thought of basing the design on the Farmer’s Market, as this is one of my favorite things in the city (as some of you know, I’m the Foursquare Mayor of it). But I think that the Monastery is truer to the history of St. Norbert — especially the french histoire.
So my logo is inspired by the Trappist Monastery’s remaining front facade. The O creates the hole where the rosary window once was.
St. Norbert is a bastion of French-Canadian culture, with a strong multicultural presence that’s typical of Winnipeg. Be sure to try some fresh spring rolls, vinatarta, or an empanada at the Market, and then check out the Buddhist Pagoda behind the St. Norbert Arts Centre.
VELOCITYWG, Rebranding One Great City, continues later this week.
Comments? jay@velocitybranding.com