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

We helped hundreds of very grateful people going through some tough times, and we also did some jobs that ad agencies don’t normally do.

Some of us put on plastic gloves, reached into giant tubs of butter and spread our delicious findings on buns. Some of us wore unflattering hair nets. And we all got to either dish the food onto plates or run it to the tables. One of the regular volunteers could carry six plates at a time, which made us look pretty amateur, but our hearts were in the right place so that made up for our lack of serving skills.

Word got around that it was a delicious meal and after it was over we all received a very genuine applause (not the phony kind that you hear everywhere else). It sure does feel nice to be nice.

WAX partnership

Actually, that’s a lie. It was a cloudy Wednesday afternoon when WAX decided to throw a pumpkin-carving contest in celebration of All Hallows Eve. Stakes were high, the best pumpkin got a hundred bucks. We all went home with pumpkins under arm Tuesday night and brainstormed. Some of these storms didn’t pack much of a punch while others were a level five hurricane of pumpkin awesomeness. Take a look at the winner and some of the honorable mentions. Pumpkins may not make for good eatin’, but they sure do make for good times.

WAX partnership

U.S. Firm to Rebrand Calgary
Click here to read the full article.

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

It’s nice to read flattering words about yourself, helps give a boost to the self-esteem. WAX recently received a nice little write-up in the July/August issue of Applied Arts. Click below to take a peek at the article. We have to admit, it made us blush a little.

Click hear to read the article

WAX partnership

We’re feeling pretty good these days. Summer is here, it hasn’t snowed yet this week, and oh yeah, that’s right, we took home PLATINUM from the 2010 Graphis Design Annual.

Click hear to see the winning work

WAX partnership

From Marketing Daily

Droga5 wins two Black Pencils in London; Canada gets nine honours but no pencils

Four Black Pencils were awarded at last night’s D&AD design awards in London.

The coveted Black Pencil awards were awarded for advertising, graphic design, and environmental design. Fifty-four of D&AD’s Yellow Pencils were also awarded, though no Canadians received either honour.

American advertising agency Droga5 received two of the evening’s Black Pencils. The agency won in the writing section of the viral category, for a film called The Great Schlep starring comedian Sarah Silverman. The video aimed to get Jewish voters to support Barack Obama during the U.S. presidential election.

Droga5 also picked up a Black Pencil for Million, an education campaign in the city of New York in which mobile phones were given to students who received “Million points” from their teachers for improvements at school. The points could be used to get free texts, calls, and downloads on their mobile phones.

Matt Dent also won a Black Pencil in graphic design for redesigning coins for the U.K. Royal Mint, and German agency Art+Com won the evening’s fourth Black Pencil for its environmental design work on the BMW museum.

A Black Pencil from a D&AD jury is extremely prestigious and difficult to win.

“The juries are not obliged to award any Pencils in a category in a given year,” a spokesperson for D&AD told Brand Republic today. “A Yellow Pencil is awarded for work that sets new benchmark for creative excellence, which is why it’s so hard to win, while a Black Pencil is akin to best in show, for ground-breaking work that redefines the medium.”

Though no Canadians took home any of the 58 Pencils handed out, Vancouver-based home design house Bocci received a nomination (one of 120 in total) in the home category for the design of power outlets it calls 22, and eight Canadian agencies had their work featured in the D&AD book, which has 574 entries in total.

Leo Burnett made the book twice, once for its magazine ads for Diageo’s Johnnie Walker, and again for its “Share our Billboard” campaign for James Ready which also won Best of Show at Tuesday’s Marketing Awards in Toronto.

Other Canadians in the book include:

• Ogilvy & Mather is featured in the ambient category for Body and Soul, an original play created as part of Unilever’s marketing for its Dove pro-age line of body products
• WAX made it in the annual reports category for its graphic design of the Calgary Society for Persons with Disabilities annual report
• Hi 5 also featured in the annual reports category for its Enablis annual report
• Canadian Graham Roumieu’s design of Penguin Group bookBigfoot: Not Dead is featured in the Book Design category
• DDB Vancouver’s “Chase” TV spot for Midas is included in the TV and cinema advertising category
• TBWA\Toronto is featured in the writing for design category for work for Skittles

WAX partnership

WAX recently picked up a bronze Clio for its work on CSPD. The Clios are a big deal – celebrating the world’s best in design and advertising. To say we’re in good company is a Clio of an understatement. You see what I did just there…yep, wittiness reigns pretty high at WAX. That, and a certain bronze statuette.

WAX partnership

Eating Disorders Group Goes Backwards
By NORMA RAMAGE

The Eating Disorders Education Organization has found a new way to get its message out: in reverse.

The Edmonton-based organization has released a 30-second TV spot from Calgary agency WAX that turns the normal commercial format on its head, with almost everything backwards from the model eating ice cream to the music and even the super of the organization’s name and website that runs at the start of the spot.

Peggy Szucs, executive director of EDEO, said the abnormality of the “Cream Ice” spot catches people’s attention and also emphasizes “that there’s nothing normal about an eating disorder.”

In a mind-bending twist which emphasizes the model’s strange, backwards eating, she turns the pages of the magazine she’s reading in the normal, forward direction.

Sebastien Wilcox, creative director at WAX, which created the spot pro bono, said the backwards approach was intended to grab people’s attention and “make them ask, What did I just see? That was weird. It’s a way of saying in 30 seconds that eating disorders are weird.”

The EDEO is using the spot as an introduction to America the Beautiful, a U.S. documentary about the modeling profession that is showing in small art theatres across Canada. The spot has also been released to major TV networks as a public service announcement.

The music for the spot is from Vancouver band Mass Undergoe. Lead singer Davis Isbister has himself beaten his problem with bulimia and has become a spokesman for EDEO.

Click here to watch the spot.

WAX partnership