A print campaign I wrote with graphic designer Richard Marazzi for Toronto furniture shop UrbanAmish. Richard also shot, edited the images.

Monthly small-space magazine campaign.

Back in ’09 my client, designer George Argyropoulos — then of Jib, now of Meta Design — approached me with a few small jobs for Far Coast’s Canada-wide brand relaunch. What began as a trickle grew to a Niagaral flow, culminating in a vast 2010 Vancouver Olympics marketing blitz (Far Coast having won Official Brewed Beverage Supplier status for the Games).

Below, some of the ads and posters used at and around Far Coast cafes and kiosks in Whistler and Vancouver.

The Far Coast website served as a key vehicle for the brand launch. In time, the Olympics sort of took it over. A few screen shots show how the various coffee and tea blends were communicated — using audio and rolling text. (If you visit the site, take note that I am responsible for the two blend descriptions shown below. The others existed before my time and aren’t quite to my, uh, taste.)

Far Coast also commissioned students from Emily Carr University of Art + Design to design and build seating for its cafes from ‘blue pine’. The timber gets its name and blueness as a result of the nasty mountain pine beetle having invaded the trees it comes from. I thought the initiative was brilliant, and so re-purposed the old ‘when life gives you lemons’ line to explain Far Coast’s adoption of this perfectly good wood, which due to its colouration is not viewed by the timber industry as commercially viable.

Since May 2, the day of The Autists, I’ve not had a moment’s rest. Pitching new clients, launching a new business and keeping up with demand from existing clients. So a quick postmort.

In sum, a massive success. We sold off virtually everything on auction, both the live and silent versions, at generally strong prices. We had three exceptional musicians — Chaka Khan, Matt Savage and Samantha Mutis — perform for us at what several conductors and musicians have already ranked among the finest concert venues in North America, Koerner Hall. And we raised a considerable sum for Geneva Centre for Autism, the exact amount I do not yet know.

I have big plans for The Autists in future, which I’ll share as they inch toward fruition.

Vast thanks to all those who worked with me, donated product, time and sweat to help our event rock the world. In no particular order they are:

Charles Pachter, for curating like the true master he is, and bringing in all those talents whose work gave our event much added oomph

Albert Schultz, for selling the goods, making us laugh and making it look far too easy

Peter Doig, for donating a fine and valuable work that helped our cause immeasurably

Stan Morantz, for saying yes to all our printing needs faster than it took him to read the list of them

Wallace Edwards, for donating a fabulous work (two actually — long story) without hesitation

Curt Detweiler, for hooking us up from San Fran with a top ad creative team in Toronto to do the outdoor and print campaigns

Jon Freir & Chunky, for producing those ads quickly and tastefully

David Shephard, Dali and Cornelius, for the blog design, ad tweaks and other last-minute favours

Fidel Pena & Claire Dawson, for designing The Autists logo and invitations that set a high and early mark and made a mere idea shine a few million candlepower brighter than it would’ve in lesser hands

Chaka, Matt & Sam, for singing, playing and giving all and remaining at the top of your respective games throughout

John Alcorn, for organizing the music, bringing such consummate pros to back up Chaka, to the extent that she took the time to write and thank us for making the experience unusually rich for her

Hindy Abelson, for believing, acting on it, tapping her people, and watching my back

Holly Bannerman, for watching Hindy’s back, and being a calming presence throughout many typhoons of uncertainty

Katie Wilson, for feeding me much useful info and enabling me to experience more personal organization than I’ve ever known, or may ever know again

Boss Marg Whelan, for saying yea not nay to a loony fundraising event, then being such a class act while attending it

The Koerner Hall-ers, for your professionalism, understanding and endless assistance

The staff at Geneva Centre, for doing what you do and making an absolute difference to the lives of people who really need a difference made

Wills & Co Media Strategies approached me with Do Over Day. For a viral campaign, it went totally bird flu. TV news and talk shows, radio stations, bloggers, surfers went nuts over it. Anyone who heard about it generally got caught up in it. The videographer, sent out to ask punters what their do overs would be, hit a pub in Cabbagetown, did some interviews, and when he returned a few hours later, everyone was still talking do overs.

I wrote the copy for dooverday.ca along with collateral — T-shirts, notepads, etc. — which I’ll post as soon as I can get my wife to shoot it all with her fancy-ass new camera that I can never get into focus.

Top design work by Laura at Messenger. Hope to be doing more with her, also my collaborator on the OurStage work.

Our contribution to the greatest race ever won.

I wrote a letter to Conrad Black in prison and he wrote me back. Here are my letter and his reply (with typos):

Dear Mr Black,

I have been itching to write you for years, as I have been both an admirer of, and in occasional apoplectic opposition to, your ideas since I first heard of you in the 1980s. So, running through this weekend’s National Post and noting that it’s far less than half the paper it was in 1998, and seeing your article ‘The Good News from Iraq,’ I thought, it’s time to attempt commencing a correspondence with this man who so fascinates and bludgeons like no other commentator.

First thing, I truly miss the Conrad Black version of the Post. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first picked it up in 1998. I had goosebumps, I laughed out loud, I practically forced strangers sitting next to me in the diner to listen to me quote its many slashes of brilliance and common sense. Finally, Canada has a real newspaper. I miss it like a long-dead best friend. The current proprietors simply lack all qualifications to run a newspaper. All they possess is a collection of mistuned political horns blowing only to the benefit of their own wearisome corporate and political interests, which are ludicrously out of step with the times. For that first year or two under your ownership, it was the finest paper in history, at least that I’ve read or read about.

So what the hell am I bothering you for? Well, I’m not taking any issue with your Iraq article, because I’ve been too busy to be up to date enough to know if I agree or not. What I want to know, Mr Black, is what’s prison like? Do you have all the reading material you could ask for? Are you getting all the writing done that you’ve always wanted to get done? Do your wife and family get in to see you often? Is your wife holding up okay? Are you getting fit? Are the other kids being nice to you? Does time slog or chug along? My dinner party guests and I want to know. I mean, what could be more fascinating than the play-by-play on a life of privilege interrupted by prison? Tell the world what jail time’s doing to/for you and your ideas, what rubbing elbows with criminals and being in the penal system really means to a man like you. Is it humbling or emboldening or just dull as watching stone age. A daily dispatch in your best former paper is in order. Believe me, the world’s dying to know. Think of it as your way of taking back the Post without spending a nickel. Christ, somebody’s gotta.

But I also want to engage you on conservatism, which like you, has attracted and terrified me since I was old enough to vote. I lived in SE Asia for over a decade, and have seen the fruits of the Chicago School of economic liberation, as one Naomi Klein refers to it (by the way I recommend her new Shock Doctrine book — it’s neither as shrill nor as flagrantly leftish as you might expect, but is well researched, fairish and even kind of funny in places). I’ve seen first-hand all the horrors and benefits American politico-economic intervention has brought to countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Laos and Singapore, all of which I’ve lived and/or traveled in extensively. As a result of my own reading and eye-witnessing, I now believe that the classic right wing canon is simple justification for greed, selfishness and not helping your fellow citizen. However, I also realize that some citizens aren’t worthy of my help and should just be ignored or left to learn from their own mistakes, stupidity or ineptitude. I know I’ve learned from mine, wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ll spare you the diatribe. Just like to engage, kick around ideas with people who have them. If you’re keen, reply. If not, may you rot. Kidding.

Stay strong,

Paul

Dear Mr. Fenn,

Thanks for your message. The answer to the first six questions following your “what’s prison like?” is yes. After five years of persecution, I measure events against the trend over that time. This place is not at all oppressive, much less dangerous. There has been no unpleasantness with anyone. It is not excessively regimental; I have practically unlimited email, media, and visitor access, and read a lot. I did not have a life of privilege, and have had worse times than this. I have always worked hard and still do. As you know, I won 80% of my case at trial, and the remaining counts are nonsense. I expect to dispose of them on appeal. I view my confinement like St. Thomas More viewed his hair shirt, though it is not voluntary. As the chances of my committing any illegalities re less than zero, an assault on this scale from the world’s most powerful and detested institution, (US govt.) took some getting usd to, but I feel I have held my corner quite well. I am philosophical and assimilate this interlude fairly effortlessly. Many of the people here are somewhat interesting and I have been able to confirm my ability to get on well with almost anyone. It is not humbling, not emboldening, and not especially dull. it’s what you make of it and I enjoy tutoring high school leaving candidates in English and teaching a weekly class in American history.

Thank you for your kind words about the NP and about my writing. Allowing people to do what they want and retain the fruits of their own efforts does lead to some garish and even sociopathic behaviour, but substituting the government for individual freedom produces worse consequences and never really works, other than in emergency national effort under inspired leadership toward a magnificent objective, as in the Anglo-American war effort under Churchill and Roosevelt. Best wishes to you.

Yours sincerely,
CONRAD BLACK

I get my share of unusual gigs, but a dental clinic’s wall was new. The idea was to educate kids about their choppers and reduce the fear by making them laugh. This also won an Applied Arts award.

Not sure if all were used, but these are the lines I supplied:

Bored?
Try moving only your upper jaw next time you chew.

Though their mouths are smaller than a pinhead, snails have 25,000 teeth. And no dentists.

You have 32 dependents.

You’re issued with 8 pre-molars.
Care for them and they’ll never become post-molars.

In his mouth George Washington had teeth from sheep, hippos, ivory and other people. He didn’t smile much.

Ninety-foot Blue whales can’t eat anything bigger than a shrimp.

Your 8 premolars are middle managers.
They do what front-office canines and backroom molars won’t.

You have four kinds of teeth.
Quick: What are they called?

No two teeth are identical. Even those of identical twins.

The words eat, tooth and dentist are all come from the same Proto-Indo-European root ed.

A tooth wort is not contagious – it’s a type of plant.

With over 40 sets of teeth in their life,
sharks can afford to bite anything that moves.

Some people naturally have fangs.
Try not to make them angry.

Tooth enamel is the toughest substance in your body. Unless you’re Wolverine.

Killer whales’ teeth interlock in a perfect smile.
If you see one while underwater, try to smile back.

Don’t care for your teeth and you earn commemorative plaque.

Gums often bleed the first few times you floss.

Most junk food is also bad for your teeth.

Pee-you! People once used old urine as mouthwash.

Engraved whales’ teeth are known as scrimshaw.
At least that’s what the whales tell us.

Pain-free dentistry is not an oxymoron.
Ask us about it.

Drinking lots of coffee gives teeth a tan.

Clean, healthy teeth say to the world,
“World, I don’t have grave personal hygiene issues.”

Are you a flossopher?

Always brush away from your gums,
or you’ll brush away your gums.

Your gums need your teeth need your gums.

Bad breath can indicate tooth decay.
(Or a great Caesar salad.)

A wise, but toothless, man once said,
“Wook affer yer heeff.”

Your baby teeth are your practice set.

Without a full set of teeth it’s hard to say,
“A full set of teeth.”

Pretzels are worse for your teeth than candy.

If you don’t throw out your toothbrush after a cold or flu, you can get the same cold or flu back again.

Q: What’s the worst thing in the world for teeth?
A: Ignorance.

Chew your food well – your stomach can’t.

Old friend calls, asks me to help her launch a private practice. This wee campaign was the result. Occupational therapists are like psychiatrists, only less full of their own BS.

Back in ’98, I was asked to help the president of Rothmans Singapore find a new PA. He insisted the candidate be able to speak and write English (not Singlish) flawlessly — no easy task in the land of malls. I wrote this ad which ran in the Straits Times, Singapore’s main daily. Never did find out if he found the ideal person, but I hpoe so.