The Prior Ski and Snowboard company has been making awesome skis and boards out of their Whistler factory in Function Junction for years now. (Check this 2011 Green Briefs blog article) They are also building a great tradition of using artists from the area for their ski designs, spicing it up by creating an annual contest and art event in the process.

This year I threw my artistic toque in the ring, crafting a design at my art studio at Lillooet Lake (about 45 minutes north of Whistler up highway 99) It was a definite challenge, designing to such a long thin format, knowing it has to fit skis and snowboards… I won’t spoil the surprise, but let’s just say it’s a very local theme.

I made the cut for the show, and on Tuesday September 24th I will be hobnobbing with 19 other chosen artists, at the Cabin Fever Party. This is a co-launch with the Prior topsheet contest and the Out of Bounds – Tales from the Backcountry Photo Exhibition, all presented by Whistler Arts.

The winning Prior design will be chosen by voting, between September 24th and October 25th – no doubt the competition will be fierce! I am very honoured just to be chosen for the show, and I can’t wait to see what the other artists did with that long, tall format.

Should be a great party! Come on out! Vote early, vote often!

Left Coast Naturals is a food company built on the principles of sustainability. So how can they tell that complex story in a way that is engaging, concise and as organic as their product?
Unicycle Creative proposed an animated web video, built around a storytelling voice from the Left Coast President himself.

But to begin with, we wanted to develop a strategic platform that would be unique and targeted to the context of the Left Coast brand.

SustainaFoodAbility became the title and unifying principle of the film. Through a series of candid interviews with Ian Walker, we compiled hours of anecdotes and values. Then we prioritized and organized the Left Coast story and illustrated it with hand drawn visual cartoons by Lorne Craig.
The result is a 4-minute overview that touches on history, brand advantages and genuine sustainability going forward. Check it out on YouTube, or find out more on the Left Coast website.

As an added bonus, the illustrations were drawn on an iPad using a digital sketchbook program called Paper by Fifty-Three, then layered and animated in Photoshop, exported as image sequences and edited in Final Cut Express.

Not a single sheet of drawing paper was used, saving at least one twig.

Working with London Drugs I get to profile a lot of interesting products as one of the voices of their What’s the Green Deal? program. Recently I got to see what happens when an empty lot is turned into a rich opportunity.

In 2011 I worked on the branding and launch of an innovative condo home development in Vancouver’s Gastown area, on the edge of the Downtown Eastside.

Part of that assignment involved sketching some of the sights and scenes of the neighbourhood, in as genuine a way as possible.

Rediscovering the scans of these images on my hard drive, I spent an enjoyable evening playing around with photo textures and a fascinating Photoshop filter set called Machine Wash.

Gastown is now a rapidly changing area, but still retains a grittiness and authentic sense of history. Let’s hope it can retain that balance.

The 21 Doors development went on to sell readily, and offer a bridge between expensive gentrification and relatively affordable ownership.

Some people didn’t see it that way, as it was home to the Pidgin Restaurant protests that made so many headlines in the summer of 2013. But I think the future of the area lies in mixing the old and new, the richer and poorer.

Enjoy the images.

When my friend and colleague Jacqueline Ottman asked me to create some brand imagery for her blog, WeHatetoWaste.com, it seemed like the perfect job for my favourite iPad drawing application.

Paper by FiftyThree, is an elegant, easy-to-use app that turns the iPad into a digital Moleskine notebook. I created a series of drawings on the iPad, emailed them to myself and combined them in Photoshop to create a crowded web banner, and some pretty darn happy call-to-action characters.

From a strategic perspective, we created the ‘We Hate Waste Parade’ banner to let waste-haters know they are not alone. By being part of the blog, they join a diverse community of like-minded folk, all finding and sharing their own innovative ways of wasting less while living life to the fullest.

I also re-purposed the artwork for a custom designed ‘People Towel’ – a small cloth hand towel, designed to promote the blog and save on disposable paper towels. (If you haven’t heard of People Towels, check them out here – it’s quite the regular thing in Japan!)

Check out WeHatetoWaste.com and join the parade.

Most Wednesdays I go see my fried Trevor Simpson to have a coffee, meditate and ponder my own existence. Trevor is a Life Coach, with whom I have been working for almost five years now, looking at where I’m going, what is holding me back, what I need to let go of.

In a symbiotic way, I also do the occasional cartoon for his blog, ‘Soul Clarity’.

It’s a good opportunity to let ideas flow – and just trust to my inner cartoonist to make the piece what it needs to be. Trevor usually sends me an article, and I send him a cartoon back. Though sometimes a funny drawing pops into my head during one of our sessions and precipitates a blog of its own volition.

That’s all, really. Guess I’ll just keep drawing…

And try not to think about it too much…

Do you secretly enjoy recycling? Do you prefer organic carrots to Dorito’s? (OK that’s not really a reasonable comparison – especially at 2 in the morning…) But even if you just like the feeling of buying organic food for your kids, you could be Green Positive.

So what does that mean? Is there a test? Is it dangerous.

Green Positive is a project designed to explore the power of positive green thinking to effect change. Yes, there is a test (in BETA) that you can take here, and no, it’s not dangerous to anything except the status quo.

Brought to you by the fine folk from Green Briefs and Unicycle Creative, Green Positive will explore how the power of positive motivation works. We’ll post examples of green people, companies and technology that are making a huge positive difference. (like the world’s largest PV solar array) We will share strategies you can use in your own life to maintain and magnify the effect of your own Green Positive actions and attitudes.

So take the test. Check it out. Let us know what you think of the brighter side of sustainability.