We knew that Joe was a handsome looking gentlemen, but what we didn’t know was that in the latest issue of Avenue Magazine he was going to make Don Draper look like a scrub. That’s right Don Draper now looks scrubby. Or maybe we’ve just lost respect for Don after he bedded that truck-stop waitress with the big chin. Anyway we digress. Joe Hospodarec, our Creative Director, along with a choice handful of Calgary’s CDs were asked to pose Mad Men style. Other lucky ad folks featured include Zahra Al-harazi of Foundry, Keli Pollock of Pollock, Mike Meadus of McLaren McCann, Phil Copithorne of Karo and Todd Blevins of Trigger. We think the results are debonair. (Which is just a fancy way of saying fancy.)

WAX partnership

Isn’t it so nice to get invited somewhere? Out of the 6,790,062,216 people in the world, they chose you … YOU … how flattering. Well, this phenomenon just happened to our lovely design director, Monique Gamache, when she was invited to speak at DesignThinkers ‘09, Canada’s largest creative conference held in Toronto.

On November 3, she warmed up the audience with some partial nudity, a panda, two women making out, and other unexpected scenes that Monique doesn’t appear in. It was WAX’s self-promotion video and the audience showed their appreciation by making loud sounds with their vocal cords … um … yeah … laughter is what it is called.

After that, Monique talked about finding “The Quirk Behind the Brand” and showed some recent work. Basically, she believes that every brand has an amazing, unique story to tell, through ads, design and whatnot. She believes that creative thinking can make anything super interesting: paper clips, rocks, maybe even dust.

She also bought some new shoes while she was there.

WAX partnership

WAX is pleased to announce some new members to the creative team. So far, all seem very nice and smell relatively good, for creatives at least. Steph Bialik is a new writer and comes from San Francisco’s Venables, Bell & Partners. Tim Anderson is another new writer and joins us from Vancouver’s Rethink. Andrew Payne, yet another new writer (someone better pick-up some pens), is originally from Calgary and back in tha’ hood after going back to school in Ottawa last year. Brad Connell, a writer, just kidding, psych! He’s an art director, comes from Taxi Calgary and is awesome. And Brian Allen is another art director whose basically done the round of all the shops in town and luckily for us, has settled down with WAX. And last, but certainly not least, is our new Designer Mike Rinaldi. He’s fresh out of Toronto’s York University and basically kills it with all things “designy”. He would’ve designed the “swoosh” if it hadn’t already been designed back in 1971.

So there you have it, the new members of WAX. One, two, three and break!

WAX partnership

To celebrate recent promotions, WAX did what WAX does best. Eat and drink. Lots and bottomless.

Click here to read the press release.

WAX partnership

We’re please to announce that our very own Aimee Jorgensen is no longer our very own. Aimee is now the propriety of newborn Kate Jorgensen, a healthy, bright-eyed 7 pound 8 ounce baby girl – who was born on February 6th – with a very full set of hair. Aimee will be setting aside creative briefs for biodegradable diapers for at least the next six months. Congratulations to Aimee, her hubby Cody, and their new beautiful, bouncing, baby boss.

WAX partnership

Our recent WAX Wednesday was part holiday tradition, part buffet, part slacking off from actual work, part team building, and part competition. That’s a lot of parts. Members of WAX were divided into teams based on their zodiac signs – each team was given a gingerbread house to build from scratch. The catch? Each team was given only twenty minutes to make sweet magic (unfortunately, it wasn’t the sweet magic you’re thinking of). The results were part impressive, part silly, part disgusting, part humorous and part calorie-filled. In the end, the folks at WAX all learned a valuable lesson: adding rum to eggnog is fantastic for part team building.

WAX partnership

Keeping with annual tradition, the team at WAX recently got together at the Calgary Drop-In Centre to prepare and serve dinner to those in need. And quite a feast it was, with a healthy portion of delicious oven-baked chicken, macaroni with vegetables and cheese, side of herbed carrots and a buttered roll for all. With smiles on faces and hearts on sleeves, there’s no question we’d do this again a thousand times over.

WAX partnership

Our most recent WAX Wednesday was truly an eye-opener. WAX staff was treated to a coffee lesson by none other than Sebastian – from the renowned Phil & Sebastian Coffee Company – a coffee lesson that would put Wikipedia to shame, might I add. Then, after responding to staff questions such as “Why do Starbucks coffee beans taste like burnt toast?” and “Is a $13 cup of coffee really more tasty than an $8 cup of coffee?” Sebastian showed us the fine art of latté art. Which is quite an art. Artful, even. WAX staff drank their lattés and each individual staff member attempted to pour the perfect cup. Our very own art director boy-toy, Jon Jungwirth, won the competition with a swift flick of his artful wrist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Our very own President and resident man-toy, Dan Wright, had the evening’s worst pour (or maybe we should call it a spill). Apparently his wrist was a little too rigid. Maybe Dan needs to lay off the lattés…

WAX partnership

Click to read the press release.

WAX partnership

It was just another day at the office as Account Manager Jennifer MacKay sat around with a huge smile on her face, dressed to the nines, tilting her head back in a free-spirit fashion and posing for cameras. It wasn’t until the June 2008 issue of Avenue Magazine came out when everyone at the office realized “Hey, Jen was actually doing an interview!” Read more about Jen, her accomplishments and a whole lot more in Avenue Magazine.

Click here to read the article.
WAX partnership