FRONT COVER IDEAS

MONTREAL GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Olivier Charland and Cécile Gariépy have spent the past few years honing their creative skills at some of the world’s most respected small agencies. While Charland has lent his talents to the teams at Sagmeister and Walsh and Vallee Duhamel, Gariépy has been directing films for Les Enfants. From these auspicious beginnings they’ve learned that “…talent is not everything. Quality projects come from hard work, not just a great idea. We understand that you have to be ready to put the extra effort and to reconsider everything multiple times during the process to have a singular outcome.”

They’ve made work for Allianz, Microsoft, Vitamin Water, and Capitol Music, producing games, illustrations, animations, films, illustrations, and sets, all of which maintain a minimal, fresh aesthetic, with strong geometric sensibilities.



Armed with solid principles like these and, even rarer, a long-term vision for the future, they’ve launched their new studio, Par Hasard, which aims to become a collaborative culture of international talent administered by a small team in Montreal. “We would rather stay a small studio to make sure we are involved in every aspect of the projects,” says Charland. “Hand-picking projects that stimulate creativity is something we aim towards.

“We want to put forward an aesthetic more than a specialization. We do murals as much as videos, keeping the same genuinely playful approach towards the final product. Since we try to build everything by hand, it brings a human touch to each project, no matter the end result.”

This is a key motive in the urban art scene surrounding Montreal and this 'human touch' is something I want my publication to express.

DAN ROMANOSKI - ANOTHER MONTREAL DESIGNER

Though he’s still studying, Romanoski has amassed some gloriously succinct words of wisdom for creatives embarking on their early career: 

Allow for failure, disappointment, and flexibility within a process.

Confusion is an interesting place to work 

Work with limitations instead of fighting them.

The first version is usually bad.

The designer cites artist and photographer Shannon Ebner’s Auto Body Collision project as his most pertinent source of inspiration at present, a strange Ballard-meets-Baurdillard exploration of sign, image, and meaning. Like Romanoski’s work, it’s both visually rooted and academically leaning. The designer says his favorite projects to work on usually have a conceptual bias. He enjoys “the ones that require a lot of research, conceptualization and ideation in the beginning. The experimentation phase of a project is typically my favorite part. Otherwise, I really like working with my friends. Those projects end up being pretty fun.”

A-Z TYPE IN CONTEXT: MONTREAL

Over the summer, I visited Canada. In order to effectively demonstrate the effect and use of typography in a specific place, I decided to produce a publication specifically to Montreal instead of Canada as a whole. This will allow for more specific analysis and deconstruction, on how typography is presented differently to the country. Montreal is a unique city with a culture clash in tradition from English to French. 

What is a sense of place? This question is an important factor to be able to demonstrate in the publication both visually and informatively. It is this question that made me decide Montreal for the publication.

Montreal's French-Canadian identity is hugely significant in making Montreal Montreal. Toronto has much to celebrate, and I do not wish to detract from that. But Montreal's wonders are utterly distinctive and frankly unique not only in Canada but globally. 

 

What makes this location choice more interesting is looking at typography in a different language. Interesting how the language is maybe different but the style and typefaces displayed for certain uses run parallel to designs seen from home. 

There is an interesting blend of styles to analyse, you have the more formal Helvetica dominant areas, widely displayed around the concrete jungles of Montreal, but submersed deep downtown the style and approaches change to a less formal, more artistically cultural  view on typography. Far more adorning to it's own specific sense of place.  

Here is a city that is extremely multi-cultural but that is also bilingual and bicultural, lending it a cultural vitality and beguiling spirit that stems from having two major cultural and linguistic reference points, rather than one. Architecturally, Montreal has an abundance of well preserved buildings that lend it character and a sense of being more than exclusively North American. It's European heritage is integrated into its physicality and to the lifestyle of its residents; from Montreal's bistros, cafes, bagel shops, to its vital downtown core, walkability, and street life. Old Montreal and the Plateau have very different atmospheres but both share a sense of history, of being built to human scale, and in doing so being enabling and encouraging social interaction and a powerful local identity and sense of place.  

A problem found apparent through looking at the final images is the lack of resolution. This is going to be problematic during the printing process. A fear here is it will reduce the quality in the final resolution, the only way to work round this is to perhaps pay close attention to what scale the publication shall be printed on. Too large and the images may become to pixelated. However current design ideas will prevent the publication from being too small as a lot of intrinsic detail shall be involved.