Cora's Blog: Fall Interactive Tour

This week I went on a two-day Fall Interactive Studio Tour by Oddly Studios. We explored different interactive design firms in Toronto. The tour was very rewarding and it was interesting touring different design firms. The event was also a great opportunity to network and meet some really awesome people. Both days were jam packed with activity, so I am going to focus on my favorite moments for each day of the tour.

Day One Highlights:

Amoeba St. & John St.
Phone (Amoeba): 416-599-2699
Phone (John St.): 416-348-0048
172 John St.
Toronto, ON M5T 1X5

Highlights:

Touring the studios (very artistic, including balloon lights, abstract art, and a Bambi painting).
John St.'s Vision: We are agents of positive change and we aim to discover better ways of doing things through design. It all starts with an idea.
Case study on John St.'s Guy at Home in his Underwear.
The Challenge: Consumer perception of the brand (Stanfield's).
Their Goal: was to reinvigorate the brand with a younger more digitally-savvy audience.
Case study on John St.'s work with AutoTrader.
Client’s Objective: Increase unique visitors to AutoTrader.ca

Mighty
Jon Toews - Creative Director

jon.toews@mighty.ca

Phone: 416-927-3316
420 Wellington St. W
Toronto, ON M5V1E3

Highlights:

Touring the studio (artistic, 24 employees, and loved the bicycle rack in the office).
Case study on the Worst Parking Job Ever with Hyundai Canada.
Case study on Make Me Mighty.
To work here you need to be dangerously obsessed with the Internet.
Mighty is about Measurement & Analytics, Digital Strategy & Engagement.
Presentation on the Super Heroes website.
Presentation on the Knowing is Better website.

Organic
Phone: 416-874-7000
33 Bloor Street East, 14th FL
Toronto, ON, M4W 3H1

Highlights:

Touring the studio (artistic, moving locations so half the studio was in the process of moving, gaming area with Guitar Hero, and an amazing Lego painting).
Advice on the interview process (they find most employees by word-of-mouth, they invite people to contact them, main point is that interviews are given mainly based on networking).
The most important thing is passion, a good vibe that will match the team, and a unique portfolio. They can always teach skills later.
Jobs are very specific (need exact set of skills). It is good to specialize (ex. Flash Developer).
Culture is very important - will you be able to fit in and work with the team?
It is normal to jump from agency to agency (agencies can’t support or there is better opportunity elsewhere).
Many designers get jobs on contract basis (which earns twice as much salary, but with no benefits). For example, a third of the designers at Organic are on a contract basis. These designers jump from contract to contract.
Portfolios must be: an advertisement about you (and be able to sell yourself), be interactive, show your attitude, creativity, your ideas, and your thought process.
You usually don’t meet with clients face to face at a digital company.
If you can’t make it the way you wanted, sell it anyways! Confidence is key.
Have a strong online presence. For example, your portfolio website is sometimes the determining factor for an interview. Keep an eye on your online social networks (reputation on line). Keep your online portfolio professional, with some personal touches (know your limits!)
Invest money into yourself (ex. good execution of portfolio).
Stand out (ex. video entries and do something eye catching online). You can also do something to catch the company’s attention. For example, one employee placed training bicycles outside of industries with branding on it that advertised he is fresh out of school, but willing to work hard to take off his training wheels.
If you can’t advertise yourself, how are you doing to be good at advertising for clients, such as Nike.

Jalani Morgan
Phone: 647-400-4027
jalani@jalanimorgan.com
545 King St W Studio 407
Toronto, ON M5V 1M1

Highlights:

Looking at his photography.
His passion when he talked about photography. I felt very inspired.
Always stick to your value system - people will notice and there will always be somebody who will relate to you.
Favorite photo shoot is with Lights (first big celebrity and magazine cover).
Don't make a solid 5 year plan, it may blind you to opportunities. Approach everyday to learning, adapting, changing, and being liquid.
Always invest time into personal work. His personal work is 20% analog (since it is so expensive) and 80% digital.
Make sure to have blinders on since success can get to you.
Does web on the side, but photography is his passion. He also wants to eventually learn video.
Some of his work includes photographs for John St., Verve Girl, and Much Music.
Always carry around a notepad since ideas happen at anytime.
Forget the word “Pride”.
Personal work is just as important (ex. one of his personal projects is taking portraits of people in his old pair of glasses. The project has turned into his visual signature.)
Social networks, such as Twitter, really helped him build up his reputation.

Pixel Gallery
Steve Di Lorenzo
Co-Founder | Creative Director | Curator
Phone: 416-889-4654

Highlights:

Very interesting presentation on a firm that focuses on interactive displays.
Focuses on how inspiration can come from anywhere.
Does art gallery spaces, such as Nuit Blanche.
Power of interactive displays with Sick Kids (a landscape with flowers in the waiting room that can calm people in scary situations of hearing if their child has cancer or not).
The Challenges: The furniture in the hospital has to follow certain specs and be sanitized, the display of the sky and nature has to become brighter or darker depending on the time of the day outside, has to be calm and inspirational to help parents in a tough state while waiting to hear the news of their child.
Graffiti project (where they painted the city with light, such as the CN Tower).

Day Two:

Secret Location
Phone: 416-849-5298

Highlights:

Case Study: Stanfields (The Guy at Home in his Underwear).
- They worked with John St. on this project.
- Live feed was donated for free.
- Would have been over budget in two days since it is such a huge project and they needed a full-time crew at his house.
- Goal was 25,000 likes on Facebook in order to raise $25,000 for cancer awareness.
- On Day 19, 46,030 likes.
- Half a million viewers in 8 days.
Case Study: In Real Life Race to Finish Website (TV Show Interactive extension of YTV).
- Children did user testing and tested early and often.
- Challenge: had to be 3D, but still needed to be fast loading.
- Children can make their own levels and save them on the website, along with being able to play levels made by Secret Location.
Case Study: Storming Juno
- No branding was done or would be complete until too late in the process, so they volunteered to create it themselves.
- Interactive website that will be released this Remembrance day.

Digital Cement
Phone: 1-800-354-0264
100 Liberty Street
Toronto, ON M6K 3L7

Highlights:

Touring the studio (very artistic in an old building, large office space with around 70 employees).
Life made Delicious website.
XM Radio – iPhone app
The company is all about connecting:
Connect to a customer, understand them.
Connect communication activity.
Connect to this business’ bottom line.
Connect customers to potential customers.