a 2010 blog turned into a 2016 book To celebrate twenty five years of work at Baseline Type & Graphics Cooperative on November 19, 2010, I began a blog containing a history of our studio and the work we carried out before and during the adoption of a digital workflow. As Baseline no longer exhibited a web site in 2016, the only record left was a Wordpress site which I have edited to fit this format. Ian Bateson, art director, designer and graphic artist
Ian has worked in Vancouver as a book illustrator, conceptual artist and active graphic designer for 31 years and in 2012 started practicing conceptual art using digital tools. Review samples at: ianbatesonstudio.com Contact Ian at: tel 604 984 9283 cell 604 809 8409 mail ibateson@icloud.com
All materials are © Copyright, ® Registered or ™ Trademarks of our clients or Ian Bateson’s Studio.
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a 2010 blog turned into a 2016 book Twenty five years of work at Baseline Type & Graphics Ian Bateson, art director, designer and graphic artist
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Contents: In 2010 Baseline celebrated twenty five years of design in Vancouver
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The year was 1985, the last recession
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We had apps for everything in 1985/86
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The 1993 Yeltsin-Clinton Summit
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A brave new world
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1992, was a leap year and…
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To be or not to be, that was the question…
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BC Central Credit Union, planned a celebration of their service to the credit union movement…
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The inaugural 1996 Canadian Cancer Society’s Diamond Ball
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Concepts cometh before execution
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Do newsletters resonate?
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Progressive Unions adopt design excellence
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The CEO is getting married!
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Effective design is more than look…
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The new Millennium, 2000-2011
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A big thanks for all your support
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Concrete Typography and CS4
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This couldn’t have happened!
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Liberation in use of colour or is it? My first blog without the aid of visuals
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Christy Crunch ad hits the mark
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My (our) first week of working virtually – July 2011
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In just two weeks an annual report and website hit the ground running
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My last blog
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About Ian Bateson
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Other publications from Ian Bateson’s Studio
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Children’s books illustrated during 1978-82 and exhibition history 2013-2015
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In 2010 Baseline celebrated twenty five years of graphic design in Vancouver My first blog, acted more as an introduction to who we were, what we offered and how we hoped to make this new communication tool a place of interest with observations in general and tips from our twenty five year plus history of working as graphic communicators. Baseline began in the days of marker layouts, rapidograph art, phototypesetting, light tables, paste-up, and the stat camera. We were a twelve member group, all specialists in preparation of “art for print� from designer, type setter, to paste-up monkey, the rather derogatory name given to what was a most important and last step to preparing the final camera ready art for press. Fast forward ten years and I had the dubious honour of being given the first Mac SE30, three programs and the accompanying 300 page manuals for each program to fathom, whilst trying to meet a client deadline in one month (yes a month seems like a long time these days). The SE30 required a huge amount of patience and fortitude to operate, working in Photoshop on a file not much bigger than 150 mgs could afford you a five minute coffee break once you pressed save.
There were times when I personally looked back fondly on the old methods, but the Mac and the array of programs we now had at our fingertips made the business very exciting. Twenty five years on and we became a lean, five member group, with specialties in design, programming and production for print and the web. Our people, from lower left; David Lach, Senior Programmer, lower right; Ian Bateson, Creative Director, upper left; Andrew Ware, Senior Production Artist, and upper right; Marian Lau, Production Manager, missing from this photo is David Steiner, Programmer v 5
The year was 1985 1985, Vancouver witnessed; Rick Hansen, beginning his round-the-world Man in Motion tour in a wheelchair, Mike Harcourt was Mayor of the city, the rapid-transit system SkyTrain opened, design work began on Canada Place, the future Canadian Pavilion for Expo 86 and we where experiencing a terrible recession. I was invited to join Baseline as a graphic designer, at the time a twelve member cooperative, typesetting and production house.
Baseline had a very rudimentary identity and limited marketing material to sell its services in what was a very competitive Vancouver market. Clients consisted of book and magazine publishers primarily, individual designers, and the odd small business or service provider. A few of these clients required minimum design work, certainly not enough to keep a young and determined creative designer challenged and gainfully employed.
Baseline was located on the second floor, in what was known as the old Harry Hammer building, an unappealing slab concrete structure, where walking up the flight of stairs was faster than waiting for the elevator to access Baselines cavernous, 1200 square foot space. Uncovered concrete floors, unpainted concrete pillars, an uninspired 1970’s paint scheme and the hum of what was at the time state-of-the-art Agfa phototypesetting equipment, a stat camera and darkroom, pasteup stations with home-made light tables and not a great deal more to inspire a young graphic designer, other than the professional and incredible skills of the typesetters and other equipment and knowledge required to produce design for print back then.
So a few months into the job, I set about convincing the other members we needed a unique identity, a general brochure/typesetting style guide poster and a professional stationery package for attracting new clients. We had to convey good design skills, technical capabilities and the dexterity to handle all aspects of work for print and display and a pay cheque for all, commensurate to all the new clients we would draw to our door.
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So Baselines first identity (colophon) was born, a combination of typesetting, hand drawing – using rapidographs – solid paste-up skills and the ability to test the artwork at all the necessary sizes using
the stat camera. We did a small market test with existing clients, internalized changes and alternatives as a team and finally sent our print ready artwork, via courier, to press with a prayer. All the marketing items, double-sided, single fold business cards, stationery, poster and brochure would be printed using 3-pms colours plus black, an expensive affair in 1985. I slowly added larger and more rewarding design assignments, fully utilizing our internal capabilities and always proudly handing out my unique business card when the opportunity presented itself. But clouds were brewing with the advent of what derogatorily became known as desktop publishing, the next big thing in the graphic design and production business. It would dramatically change Baseline from being a twelve member, multi-talented company into a two member – David Lach and Ian Bateson – partnership, pondering the adoption and huge learning curve this new fledgling desktop technology would demand of us if we wanted a part of this brave new world. v
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We had apps for everything in 1985/86 1986 provided me with the first large corporate logo assignment since joining Baseline in 1985. The tools and skills necessary to carry through successfully on this assignment seem antiquated now and were far less forgiving than the wonderful Mac and apps I use today. No command Z’s (multiple undoes), if you made a mistake, you simply had to try to fix it or start over. Through review of this project – not the most compelling identity package I’ve designed – I wanted to demonstrate how much dexterity, knowledge and shear determination was required in the 1980’s to design a logo and produce the myriad of artwork required for all applications to print, vehicles, building signage, etc. The visualization of these tools are a small sampling of the required skills to effectively start and finalize a graphic design project from start to finish. Other professionals required in completing this and other similar projects required; typesetters, stat camera operators, paste up artists, pre press houses, all highly skilled individuals. With the introduction of computer generated design and illustration, a seasoned designer could now take on most of the roles described above and more, using applications such as – but not limited to – the Adobe suite, for print, display, multimedia and the web. The time it took to visualize concepts, present to a client
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via pdf, to final production on approvals has been so condensed you can’t begin to grasp that a simple identity assignment for a new company from start to finish would take months in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Meetings at the beginning, through to the end of a project, would take up an inordinate amount of that time, sending a pdf and video conferences wasn’t not an option then. Making minor changes to design elements essentially meant redoing the work over for a second time from scratch in most cases. Proofing was an absolute key to your survival along with appropriate hard copy sign-off from your client, at all stages, ensured that they too were diligent before moving a project forward to an ever increasingly expensive change.
Print and display production was very expensive in the 80’s and the majority of large identity packages where designed using one or two colours. Logo’s had to work in basic black and white (as they still should today) and be equally effective in news print as well as 175 to 200 line screen high end lithography. With stochastic printing those limitations have virtually disappeared. News print has improved to such a level that 4 colour logo’s stand up well in most print mediums. Of course there are still challenges facing the designer when working with colour such as RGB and CMYK variables, interpretation across a much broader range of applications. But to have gained the freedom from restrictions imposed as a result of line screen settings, and liberation from cost prohibitive use of colour, the designer of the 21st century is only limited by their imagination. v
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The 1993 Yeltsin/Clinton Summit It was April 1993, the first formal meeting between Yeltsin and Clinton, to further United States and Russian cooperation on bilateral issues. The intent of this historic Vancouver Summit was to form the groundwork for a declaration pledged by the two sides to uphold “a dynamic and effective United States-Russian partnership.� Canada was to act as host under then the Federal Conservative party and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
on demand colour digital print capabilities for proofing or direct-to-plate stochastic printing. Every step required a physical time consuming process to accommodate the steps to final product. The courier business flourished and each of those five days ended at 2:00 am.
Baseline was approached by Corina Acheson, a senior sales rep at Benwell Atkins, with an opportunity to partner on a bid to design, produce and print the graphic identity and collateral for this event. They won the bid and by default we were thrown into an initial two week design frenzy, first to provide initial layouts for the identity of the event and subsequently design and produce identity applications, style and layouts for; delegates (journalist in the main), and dignitaries welcoming packages, programmes, backdrops, way finding graphics and day-to-day communication pieces.
Whilst I feverishly took charge of client design requirements, the look and feel of all the collateral, my partner of twenty five years, David Lach, took charge of sourcing an appropriate cyrillic font for the Russian language editions, prepare appropriate style sheets in Quark for the anticipated 110% larger French translations and the same for the 120% increase in character count for the Russian. David was also busy preparing an off site Baseline office at Canada Place to process the daily input from the English reporters, coordinate the French and Russian translators, and put in place a means to trafficking all this activity back to home office for typesetting, proofing and plate-ready film output, ready for delivery to Benwell Atkins for imprinting onto pre-printed four colour templates.
Day-to-day communication pieces, presented the largest challenge back in 1993. Limited internet connections, no FTP sites for quick delivery of files between writers, design layout artists and press, no quick pdf proofs and
Each day’s events had to be reported, typeset and printed as a finished newsletter within twelve hours and delivered to all delegates by 6:00 am in front of their hotel rooms. v
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A brave new world When starting the blog I didn’t have a plan, other than chronicling the twenty five years I’d been in partnership with David Lach and the various members of our team. Writing stories chronologically would be difficult, so I allowed reminders of our past to form my content, such as the first real logo designed for Baseline, or our first really big gig – the Yeltsin Clinton Summit.
were mailed with backup phone calls made each week in an attempt to set up that first crucial meeting. The portfolio was tailored for a specific audience – today the website can be easily updated – and I researched as much as possible about the new prospect – didn’t have Google then – before entering the offices of company marketing VP’s and CEO’s.
1989 saw the release of the Mac SE/30 and the emergence of what become known – and hated, by seasoned, professional designers – as the era of desktop publishing. With a $15,000 investment (the SE/30 alone was $6,500) you could become an overnight graphic designer, typographer and publisher, and it heralded the end to the traditional train of experts who expertly produced for the print and the display trade.
Over a twelve month period, we managed to bring in new regular customers who recognized the importance of well-tailored marketing and communication tools. Print was still king, and we worked long hours and weeks to provide this new Baseline client base with the very best we could produce. Our clients included the resource industries and their suppliers, engineering firms, lawyers, consultants, First Nations and emerging industries. My first SE/30 was changed to a new Macintosh IIsi, we replaced our expensive image setter with the Apple Laser Writer and began outsourcing our film output directly to the printers.
Competing with people who charged anywhere from 25% to 50% less than our established hourly rate for design, typesetting and production, meant we had to become marketers, relying less on the ability of the Yellow Pages to bring people to our doors. Smaller company’s, our traditional bread and butter, flocked to the emerging desktop publishers, we had to find new ways of attracting larger, more sophisticated customers if we were to survive. I bought my first business suit, a prerequisite if you where going to show your book and expect business and corporations to hire you. Many letters of introduction 12
Limited to 150 line screen, 4-colour work – not a match on to days stochastic direct-to-plate technology – we also embraced the new, value priced, hi-end digital printing capabilities, allowing for a more affordable, tailored marketing campaign to address various audiences in conjunction with the new wave of social media providing content to interact with. A brave new world indeed v
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1992, was a leap year and… …little did we know that within six years George Bush would become President of the USA, then promptly vomit into the lap of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazaw at a state dinner. In 1992, Moshe Safdie’s great ellipse was announced the winner for the design of the Vancouver’s new main library and was reminiscent of an ancient Roman amphitheatre. Of the 7,000 citizens who submitted remarks, approximately 70 percent favored the ‘Colosseum’, as the proposal was dubbed. The new Mike Harcourt NDP government repealed Bill 19, the Industrial Relations Act, ending a period of bitter labor relations in the province, and Baseline had a client list of corporations, local businesses, institutions, political party’s, BC Government Ministry’s that fed our team of six with work and a reasonable payroll. There wasn’t the crowd sourced sites we see today, offering logo’s at $25 a pop, or designed collateral for $250, or websites for $500. The web was still slow, in its infancy, the question then was… “do I really need a website?.” Back then we need only capture 1% of the market to maintain our business operations (rent, phones, computers, etc) and pay a reasonable wage and benefits package for Baseline.
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We had emails and faxes, but not an ftp site for quick delivery of art files – couriers and diskettes where the order of the day. The skills we acquired over the previous decade to produce design for print gave Baseline the ability to build not only a strong client base, but also long partnerships with some of the top print and display suppliers in town and across the country. They looked forward to our phone calls for print quotes. Lavish 4-colour plus jobs, were considered the cream but effective design for 2-colour where equally in demand due to cost constraints. Hi definition limited digital print was still a little way into the future and the experience and accrued knowledge to produce stunning work for lithographic printing was considered a high skill. Designers needed years of working with print and paper to fully realize a quality finished product. Gaining new clients required temerity, lots of phone calls, constant reminders through effective direct marketing and a fully stocked, quality portfolio with the added ability to present that physical book with confidence to new people on a very regular basis. Competition was fierce, but estimated job costing from various design studios would not vary wildly and of course the proof of capability was in the portfolio and past experience. Vancouver still had – in 1992 – a relatively healthy mix of head offices, mainly resource based, but large in scale and capability. Baseline was lucky to have established a strong relationship with one of the large wood and pulp corporations, Weldwood of Canada, and go on to enjoy
a ten-year relationship with this company. The largest – both in money spent and marketing communications value – was the annual report. Typically a 24 to 28 page 4-colour designers dream. Each year had to not only cover the legal financial report but creatively provide a front end story of the year in a captivating and illustrative way. Aligned with this document was the Weldwood Environmental Report, a companion 24 to 28 page document, requiring a unique creative and on-time-on-production for delivery to employees, government agencies and investors. Throughout the rest of the year Weldwood would produce internal employee newsletters, human relations pieces; benefit packages, public relations pieces, new plant identities, custom retirement packages for senior staff, advertising for local and international markets and sales tools. In short, as a small design house, having one of these corporations as a client created a wave of creative work throughout the year in addition to other mid-size and smaller clients needs, we were kept busy. Much has changed both in the delivery of targeted messages, product sales and corporate branding. Print is no longer king and the global reach of the Internet has forced smaller design houses to rethink and retool in their pursuit of creative design. It’s an incredibly fascinating new world that evolved very quickly, no time to sit back, we all needed to run to keep up, just as long as there is electricity and the net doesn’t go down for more than a week. v Continued overleaf… 15
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To be or not to be, that was the question…
…to be, the only choice then. The year was 1985 and my four year contract with Douglas & McIntyre – researching and illustrating the new BC Ministry of Education, grade-4 social studies curriculum – had come to an end. Thrown into the maelstrom of competing in the freelance market again during an economic downturn proved challenging. Jean (my wife) and I were struggling to pay the mortgage at 18% interest rates, find affordable child care and provide for our day-to-day needs was a challenge. Noticing a want ad for a designer at a company called Baseline Type & Graphics Cooperative, that carried little detail other than “interested individuals should leave their letter of introduction and resume at the front desk”. I left the CV at their desk, a nondescript office on the second floor of the old Harry Hammer warehouse at 990 Homer Street. When hired and eventually offered membership, we worked hard through two decades, two recessions and a constant requirement to adapt to the ever-changing requirements of the design and communication industry. We built, and secured our place as a quality driven design studio, with a growing roster of clients across a broad range of businesses, not-forprofits, unions, governments and the corporate sector.
The new 2011/12 Baseline business model… …fast forward to May, 2010 and again we saw the financial winds of change. Our lease was up at 736 Granville at the end of June that year, and like many in the business we had witnessed a slow down and felt the challenges presented by the tightening belts of our long-standing clients. We saw the impact of shifting budgets to a different set of deliverable; video and online social media. We witnessed crowd sourcing and it’s impact on pricing for identity design. Print still had a place, but the perfect storm of the above and a continued slowing in the BC economy forced us into realizing that the long-term prospects for Baseline delivering well executed design and communication solutions would be through the creation of an effective virtual office versus our beloved downtown central address. In June 2010, we signed the lease at 736 Granville for one more year, providing time to put into place the tools and protocols necessary to effectively work from our respective home offices. David Lach built an online CMS administration tool for tracking client work, opening Continued overleaf… 19
new business dockets, provide staff with electronic time sheets and Baseline management with an online invoicing capability. Our most important branded assets, such as the Baseline phone number, our respective email addresses and website URL had to stay in tact – a real challenge when dealing with Telus, Bell and a third-party telecommunications provider who will remain anonymous. During May and June 2011, Baseline updated its identity, customized a comprehensive CMS administration and management tool and developed a new website in preparation for our move to our virtual office. We needed a central Vancouver mailing address, new business cards, online letterhead and connectivity through our respective cells and where necessary Skype accounts for day-to-day communication. On June 30th, Baseline people saw their respective and numerous labeled boxes, slowly disappear into the back of a uHaul rental truck, ready for our four point Greater Vancouver relocation.
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Our team – David Lach, senior web developer and my partner for twenty six years, Andrew Ware our senior web and print production artist for fifteen years, David Steiner, senior web developer for six years and Marian Lau, our incredible office manager for twelve years – were now into their first week working from home. The discipline of getting up at the same time (well maybe not exactly the same time) along with a myriad of other not yet experienced issues, Baseline was now committed and well prepared for another decade of challenge. We looked forward to continuing to offer designed solutions that would fit our clients needs. Postscript: It’s now 2016 and the virtual office lasted two years. More clients decided to either go inhouse or changed direction in their communication plans entirely. Younger members of the group wanted to move on and my long time friend and business partner decided to fully retire. I started freelancing again setting up as Ian Bateson’s Studio working for the odd client but concentrating more on my own graphic art, finding exhibition space and generally enjoying the pursuit of my own creative output. v
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BC Central Credit Union, planned a celebration of their service to the credit union movement… …and in early 1993 I was approached by BC Central Credit Union to provide a quote for a major book project, a retrospective of their history. This would chronicle a period between 1848 to 1994, authored by Ian MacPherson. It tells the story of British Columbia’s dynamic credit union movement and the role played by its central organization, BC Central Credit Union entitled; Co-operation, Conflict and Consensus. Probably one of the most challenging projects I’ve been asked to quote and work on during our twenty five year history. Simple questions like; “How many pages are we talking about?” – hasn’t been completely written or edited yet! to; “Who will be responsible for the visual research?” – good question! and “Who will ultimately print this project, who is the primary audience and hence how many copies will be needed?” – Don’t know about the printer, but the audience will be Credit Unions, Leaders in the Credit Union movement and Employees, 22
oh, and we want a stylish hardbound and less expensive soft cover copy. Might be nice to have some customizing on some of the covers for VIP’s. “Do you have a budget in mind?” – No, we know what the author will be charging but the rest is why we’re coming to you, to provide a budget! The logistics required a reasonably realistic budget for design, production and manufacture, all daunting. I requested the author supply the first rough draft to establish word count and how many chapters he felt would be required and did he have any knowledge about resources for prospective images to help tell the story. Ian pointed the way to the archives that he had been researching for months, so everything had been chronologically boxed by decade. He offered to go through the material with me once I had a signed agreement to start. Continued on page 22…
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We estimated a minimum number of required books through the help of Gayle Stevenson, Manager, Publications, Ian Smith , Director of Communications, they were low quantities and the project had the potential of breaking the bank. I had established the book would likely exceed 200-pages based on the authors first draft. Eleven chapters suggested that would likely increase the page count to 211, “Oh and we will need an index”, OK, 222. At the end of the day the book mushroomed to 300-pages. It soon became evident that this was not going to be an affordable project for BC Central if we chose to print sheet-fed, which would provide the highest quality, leaving us the only other option, web-fed. In the early 90’s, Vancouver had one or two credible web-presses big enough and capable of handling this project. The softback covers, hard-back sleeves would be sheet-fed and the entire 300-page inside would run in 11 signatures 4-colour, over 1, and I insisted we had to run those pages at a minimum of 150-line screen or higher. After much discussion and I’m sure fear on the web-printers part, they agreed to do some R&D to meet the higher line screen request. I could now prepare the estimated budget, delivered to the powers in mid-1993, and they gave their approval to proceed. The first piece of business, search through the archives for appropriate material that would act as the foundation for the visuals in the book. I spent weeks with the author and interns to collect boxes of period pieces
that Ian MacPherson, author, would agree represented his story. I left with valuable box-upon-box of historical Credit Union Central archives. Many sleepless nights followed, not only in the fear of the building burning or an imminent earth quake destroying this irreplaceable trove, but what would be the most efficient, affordable way to record all this material for use in the book. Items such as newsletters, posters and other print ephemeral, dating back to 1848 and the 50’s required extensive reconstruction as did photo’s of key individuals and groups. David Lach, my partner agreed to the purchase of an Abaton scanner (desktop scanner) for a grand total of $478:00 (1993 dollars, you can do the maths) for the purpose of recording all the 2-dimensional and – I took a gamble – 3-dimensional objects, that later I’d manipulate in Photoshop on a Mac IIci. Long days and nights awaited. Initial scanning of hundreds of images and artifacts, logically storing and cataloguing the raw material, days and weeks of recreating damaged material and then finding a solution to represent this myriad of images in a creative and compelling way. We prepared an initial set of design layouts for BC Central, providing options for the treatment of 4-colour chapter openers, typical black and white pages, covers, etc. This was a month of work, sleepless nights and a lot of prayer. The boxes of irreplaceable documents sat in my office whilst I tried to create logic from chaos. Continued on page 27…
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What they had to say The initial layouts were received with strong approval, everyone from the top executives to the communications department gave the thumbs-up and it would take weeks more of arduous work to create the 300-page document. Colour tests with the printer were required, editors were still perfecting the document, names used were being checked and cross-checked and I still had these boxes of irreplaceable archive images in the studio. For those of you who have press checked a web job, you will know this had to be the most excruciatingly, stressful experience. The press really never stops, just slows a little, so that paper is still running, ink still being poured and you have to make decisions quickly, taking each form, folding them roughly and making critical decisions on the ink mixes. Fold, examine, move ahead and so on. At the same time Mitchell Press were running the sheetfed covers in another part of the plant, and I was busy discussing foiling and bindery with another department. A thrilling end to an intense endeavour and the books were delivered on time, within the estimated budget and to the BC Central Head Office with applause. v
“ With my copy of Co-operation, Conflict and Consensus in hand, I have to congratulate and thank you for a truly outstanding job – and for providing a level of service that went far beyond the reasonable. The complexity of the project certainly exceeded expectations. And those of us who worked on it here at Central are grateful for the patience, flexibility and commitment to quality shown by yourself and others at Baseline. Despite delays and obstacles lurking at every corner, you produced a corporate history that we consider the best example of its genre. It’s beautifully designed with inviting graphics and values that actually encourage handling, browsing and reading. The response from credit union and Central staff has been vocal and enthusiastic. Clearly, Central was fortunate in working with you on the assignment. Without your talent and dedication, I’m sure we’d have gone off track long before completion. I hope that you and the Baseline team are as proud of the book as we are.” — Gayle Stevenson, Manager, Publications, Credit Union Central of BC
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The inaugural 1996 Canadian Cancer Society’s Diamond Ball In 1995, I was approached by the communications and marketing manager of one of our larger clients to volunteer Baseline’s time and skills toward the creation of a new fundraising initiative for the Canadian Cancer Society, B.C. & Yukon Division. Baseline was very busy at the time, we were serving a long list of clients both large and small, just the thought of taking on an additional volunteer creative and production position seemed overwhelming. But when one of your larger clients makes a request, well you simply acquiesce and hope for the best, plus we felt it to be a worthy cause and an opportunity to give back. A volunteer committee had been formed and we met to discuss the immediate communication requirements for the inaugural Diamond Ball’s identity and graphic communication needs. This would become an annual event and over the following fifteen years, would help raise millions of dollars toward cancer research. “We are going to call the annual event The Diamond Ball” exclaimed the Chair. “We will need a classy logo,
stationery package and invitation package aimed at the well-to-do who will be invited to this lavish ball and dinner. After being wined, dined and entertained, they will be asked to bid on lots of lavish items that volunteers will have spent previous weeks and months procuring from vendors of expensive services and supplies.” During the mid-90’s print was still dominant and expensive. Our first order of business was to engage the help of a print supplier (volunteer) willing to donate their services, which the committee instructed I take care of. Always difficult to ask fellow professionals to donate their services, and even harder when you know design by a committee of volunteers will push for more. That larger client, I mentioned earlier, was influential in promising a particular printer we used on a regular basis, continued patronage in the future if they took this assignment on. It was the only carrot I had to offer by way of securing their commitment, and the domino game didn’t end there. The printer then had to secure agreements with paper manufacturers and other suppliers. Continued on page 32…
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The printer requested we limit the job to 2-colour, and chose a house-stock (paper) wherever possible (4-colour today is a fraction of what it cost in the 90’s). Armed with these known and established production limitations, concept and design could begin. The actual logo presentation went well, with a choice made from 3-alternative submissions. We decided that a rich black and metallic gold (2-colour as dictated by the printer) would give the overall identity a distinctive flavour. When the printer saw what we had in mind – “We hadn’t allowed for metallic inks, just a flat pms colour, now we have to look at more expensive paper and…*!?*#!”, it was back to re-negotiating the necessity of our decision and with some cajoling they agreed grudgingly to metallic gold and black. For the next three years, each theme would have to be thought about in terms of this limited use of 2-colour restriction, although print technology and more importantly, pre-press where moving quickly toward computer-to-plate which eventually would make the use of full-colour (4-colour) a more affordable alternative. My poor print rep never looked forward to the call each April, where I respectfully brought up the subject of the next Diamond Ball project. But in 2000 the printer announced “You could move to 4-colour, but NO! addition of a metallic please”. With a little work at convincing the powers at the Cancer Society and the Diamond Ball committee, we embarked on a completely new approach, providing more flexibility
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in conveying each years theme with colour, colour, and more colour, what a liberation from a design and illustration perspective. Baseline continued working for this worthy fundraiser until 2003 and after seven years we felt it was time a fresh set of creative minds continue working on this yearly event. We thanked the committee for their hard work and dedication and watched as the 2010 event marked the fourteenth anniversary, raising more than $5.5 million dollars since its inception in 1996. v
What they had to say “ We received the invitations, RSVP card, bag tags and envelopes yesterday, and wanted to let you know that we are thrilled with them! They look absolutely beautiful! The colors are great, and the silver really shimmers in the light. Thank you so much for all your hard work on this.” — Lisa Lockerby, Manager, Special Events, Canadian Cancer Society
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Concepts cometh before execution Universal Dynamics (UDL), a leading and successful Canadian engineering firm, provided cutting edge solutions using their patented technology to solve the most demanding issues in the assessment, design and implementation of environmental, instrumental and engineering control for heavy industry. Starting in 1999 Baseline enjoyed an eight year relationship with the UDL management and marketing team, creating a new corporate identity, providing writing, concept and design for their marketing, training and sales collateral. Being engineers – a conservative, detailed orientated bunch – we approached each project with an attentive ear, a collaborative spirit and careful assessment of their audience through research and appropriate application of key messaging. Plain English translations of complicated engineering concepts and emotionally charged call-to-action headlines played an important role in the development of their corporate brochures, sales collateral and interdepartmental sales materials. During this period, David Lach and I spent a lot of time trouble shooting and word smithing – generally spending more time together than our respective partners probably appreciated – to lay the groundwork 34
for ideas for each project, presented initially as rough conceptual sketches. We were lucky in dealing with an open and engaged marketing department and a CEO who embraced creative ideas. They were not averse to testing concepts with their established clients to determine appropriate messaging prior to final production. 1999 saw the increase in growth of businesses supplying crowd sourced stock photography and illustration and in order to differentiate our clients visual communications – but remain competitive to this new era of inexpensive visual resource – I honed my Photoshop skills to uniquely illustrate and position our clients messages. During the mid to late 90’s, Baseline enjoyed growth in design and production for print, experiencing – over the next six years – a 75% increase in revenue, the remainder coming from development of emerging web-based work. Fast-forward to 2011 and we saw quiet the reverse, with 75% of our business from the web. One thing remained the same though, the need for thorough research, clear and understandable writing and dynamic graphic and visual design to tell a compelling story to effectively differentiate our clients message. v
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Do newsletters resonate? During our twenty five year history we were lucky in having strong associations with clients from many sectors; non-profits, governments, private companies and corporations that engaged us to design and produce their newsletter as a part of an overall communications strategy. Some lasted years others fizzled within twelve months, due to lack of resources and/or commitment. In my opinion all the pieces we’ve been involved with have been well thought out, designed and engaging to the core readership, at the same time compelling to those involved in producing content to stay motivated and engaged to move onto the next issue. Looking at our past has provided some insightful opinions about what works and what doesn’t, not merely from a design perspective but from a commitment to ensuring a newsletter (online or in print) has resonance with its audience. During our early years working with corporations like Weldwood, NGO’s like The Red Cross and First Nations Family and Childcare Workers Society, those newsletters only carried meaning for their audience when they could be expected. It’s rather like your own personal habits when wanting to get the latest news from a local or national newspaper, you expect
consistency and a timely produced publication with current and engaging content. On the following pages are samples of the newsletters we designed for print and those we later designed and produced, providing our clients with a CMS driven (Content Management System) which then published and distributed each issue via an email database. David Lach, our senior web developer, also designed a pdf generator for printing these documents if required. Weldwood of Canada’s Dialog, which we designed and produced for well over eight years, was an employee driven communication tool providing them with updates on: safety, company wide mandates for improved performance, shareholder information and more importantly, individual and group achievements within the communities they operated. The marketing department never missed a deadline and every year we were asked to design and produce an employee survey for feedback on Dialog, and other employee incentive packages. This newsletter was a success and served the readership well, becoming a crucial part of the Weldwood culture and PR/HR program.
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First Nations Family and Childcare Workers Society’s, Talking Stick newsletter covered issues of interest to the workers who were the society’s members. This publication lasted about twenty four months and was first published in 1997 to applause from its readers. Talking Stick, written by core executive members and edited externally by a freelance writer, would have been more successful had the executive delegated more of the initial research and content provision to the external writer. The core executive were inundated with personal day-to-day work and realistically could not adhere to the grueling additional work required for research and writing of this planned 4-times a year, broadsheet newsletter.
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The College of Occupational Therapists of BC, newsletter – InStep – and the British Columbia College of Social Workers – College Conversation were both 12-page newsletters whose audience were the respective College registrants. We redesigned InStep in 2006 and College Conversation in 2008. In both cases they were to be published 4-times a year. Similar to the issues faced by the First Nations example, the pressures on the Executive Directors’ to provide core content and direction impeded the goal to publish on time and neither managed to produce four issues consistently over a twelve month period.
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BC Health Match, Advance and Recruiter eNewsletters, both designed in 2009 and then updated in 2011 as custom designed – David Lach was the chief developer – CMS driven publications were successfully published on a regular basis, due in large part to the organizations commitment to employ professional communicators to drive content. The Executive Director approves material, but isn’t involved in every detail. v
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Progressive Unions adopt design excellence In early 2002, Baseline became involved with NOW Communications, one of Canada’s leading social marketing and advertising agencies, to help create some of the most compelling political campaigns for the federal and provincial NDP, coast to coast. We had also been commissioned to work on numerous identity and communication packages for both local and national unions such as; The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, BC Teachers’ Federation, CUPE, IBEW, The Ontario Public Service Employees Union, The Manitoba Nurses Union, to name a view. Baseline helped NOW in creative strategic positioning for identity design, applied to extensive internal and external communication tools. We provided design-lead for public campaigns applied to; billboards, brochures, power point presentations, websites and TV. It was always a pleasure to be called into the NOW office for a briefing and collaborate with a truly committed and fun group of people. Of course with a company name like NOW, I soon learned and came to expect tight deadlines, and the necessary collaborative spirit to not only deliver on time, but be prepared for a myriad of changes, tweaks and long days to meet their needs. v 46
What they had to say “ Ian has done many impactful pieces with us over the years. From still talked-about billboards to brochures you want to keep to total branding packages. I particularly like Ian’s approach to rethinking existing brands: he’s thoughtful, strategic and creative.” Marie Della Mattia, President & CEO, Partner NOW Communications “ Ian is a creative collaborator who truly cares about every design he takes on. His work delivers strong images, emotional connection, and impact. He takes time to understand his clients and their needs. And he’s fun to work with!” Maya Russell, Managing Director. NOW Communications “ On every project, Ian has always been on budget and on time. He brings creative ideas to the table that result in great final designs for our clients.” Rupinder Kang, Director of Client Services. NOW Communications
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The CEO is getting married! We had worked with Pat Gaines, CEO, of LML Payments for well over 8-years, creating their annual reports, sales collateral, a revamped identity package and everything else their marketing efforts required during the 90’s and early 2000’s. In 2003 he and his soon to be wife, Carolyn Mosher, where planning their marriage arrangements and we thought it would be fun to offer our services as a wedding gift. They were both avid Harley Davidson fans, having spent many of their vacations touring North America onboard the iconic touring bike. It presented a wonderful opportunity to tailor the invites, R.S.V.P.’s, thank you cards, way finders, etc, around their favorite pass time. Conceptually, I wanted to tell a small story through these wedding communication pieces and instill a graphic presence that would resonate with the romance of the Harley brand and the freedom of the wide-open road. After presenting an initial conceptual layout, they both got excited and introduced me to a photographer friend to capture the various shots required to tell the story. This probably was my shortest blog, but I wanted to share this little nugget of inspirational fun. Bride and groom arrive in their leathers and leave in full wedding costume aboard one of North America’s great icons. 54
We provided them with invites, R.S.V.P.’s and small stickers used on everything from table placement gifts to invites and return thank you envelopes. v
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Effective design is more than look…
…a case study. Our client:
Our brief:
Anne Borschneck, V.P. Communications at Minto Research & Development, Inc., approached me in 2003, not pleased with her current graphic design and sales tools. Anne recognized design must offer more than mere looks, and prep for printers.
The Sager® product logo and the Minto™ company logo had twenty five years of branding value and was not to be considered for a make over, everything else was up for discussion and renewal. The only other proviso, Minto™ should not be seen as competing with their stable of world-wide distributors in terms of soliciting direct sales, but rather, be seen as augmenting and helping drive sales through their distributor networks, a tough course when competing with an array of alternatives sold through the same venues.
Our first discovery meeting was long, during which I realized a huge potential in working with and helping this family-run business achieve far more through their communication and advertising. Like many of our clients, Anne needed a design communication partner to effectively market her company’s remarkable emergency response products to the next level. Anne was fully conversant and knowledgeable about Minto’s product capabilities, but she needed creative help in presenting them to prospective users through effective advertising, marketing and communication design but also required ongoing advice regarding new and emerging possibilities, such as leveraging the web and online business-to-business networks.
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Our first order of business: identify and produce a plan of action, provide time lines, a strategy and a budget for reshaping the face of the company and its brands. On agreement from Minto™, we proceeded (working closely with Anne) to create a distinctive branding message applied to a modern, clean stationery package, a compelling sales brochure for the primary splint products, a product newsletter and the initial phase of what would be the first of two web sites designed and produced over an eight year relationship.
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I recognized early, there had to be a stronger understanding of the Sager® products strengths and differentiate Sager® by highlighting the superiority of the products through a succinct and quantifiable branded message. We began a series of updated, marketing newsletters, aimed directly at EMS responders (Emergency Medical Services) delivered via direct mail to their list of distributors, demonstrating the superior quality of the splints through comparative studies and white paper medical reviews. We also designed and produced a series of EMS World periodical full-page ads carrying the same distinctive messaging which could be tailored and customized for product specific announcements. Minto™ knew the importance of consistent and repeated exposure through well designed advertising, in fact we helped them win awards from two of the top U.S. trade magazines (EMS World and JEMS) for what reader surveys considered – the most engaging, memorable and professionally produced ads, over a twelve month period.
Other products necessary for increasing sales: Minto™ provided us with a copy of their first training video produced for the fractured femur treatment kits. They had not found an effective means of distributing it to potential buyers other than through direct product sales or individually mailed. We recommended, streaming the video, breaking it into chapter by chapter offerings, providing the end-user choices for information relevant to their particular product purchase. 58
We designed a consistently branded DVD version for packaging with all newly purchased products along with the comprehensive product guideline. The training kit they were distributing through snail mail was difficult to update and maintain, so we redesigned the publication, along with the necessary completion certificates and additional instructor power point tools. During the planning phase of the first web site, these were introduced into the site and made easily accessible through one click off the home page. These initiatives alone saved Minto™ money on bulky packaging and postage. It made sales calls easier by providing simple directions to the appropriate location on the web for answers about training questions and appropriate downloadable resources. Minto™ Research & Development didn’t sit on their laurels, over a five year period they developed additional fracture response kits – SEFRS®, Sager Extreme™, Stormpac™ and the Minto™ Fracture Kit – all requiring sympathetic branding design and their own specific communication and training tools. In 2009 I began the design of the second web site, art directed and produced a new video and packaging kit, provided Minto™ with a conference display kit, providing the company with a ROI, the only true test of quality and consistently well applied design. David Lach, Baseline’s Senior Web Developer completed a CMS editing suite for the newly designed web site and provided Sager® with an effective online newsletter tied to an email announcement and pdf generator for
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those wishing to print the document. We completed the implementation of the Minto™/Sager® Facebook and LinkedIn landing pages and trained Anne in the use of a custom company blog, providing this valued customer the tools required for ongoing success.
Sager began working with Baseline in 2003. We have since relied on Ian Bateson, Baseline’s Creative Director: • t o revamp our identity to better reflect the corporate structure of Minto and it’s Sager brands. • r eposition the Sager products through design of product specific marketing brochures. •d esign, illustrate and produce extensive training and teaching manuals for all our product line, and effectively allowing any user of our products immediate access to this valuable resource online. •d esign, produce and manage our web site, with the most recent addition of; - a streaming product video, Ian designed and art directed. - banner advertising development placed in a trade web site that effectively leads potential customers to the Sager web site providing us with a valuable data entry point for ongoing and future sales. - Baseline has implemented and designed a comprehensive on-line quoting ability for customers around the world, without compromising our relationships with long standing distributors. v 60
What they had to say “ Ian remained a valuable partner and supplier to Sager®, both in a marketing capacity and design and implementation function. He was committed to our ongoing requirements both in print and the web and never compromised on quality of execution wether it was a full-colour trade ad, or an update to the web site – Ian has never missed a deadline. I highly recommended both Ian and Baseline, to anyone for their skill in understanding sometimes complex issues, and a dedication to timely execution of a finished creative result.”
— Anne L. Borschneck, Vice President, Marketing
SEFRS™, SEFRS Adaptor™, MINTO™ and SAGER™ are registered trademarks of Minto Research & Development, Inc. 20270 Charlanne Drive Redding, CA, USA, 96002
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The new Millennium, 2000-2010 In 2000 the BC NDP, under the leadership of Ujjal Dosanjh, released a budget of confidence only to be defeated in May 2001, a sad day for families, unions, health care workers, teachers and young workers in this province, and one that over the next decade would see huge erosion of parliamentary democracy in Victoria. Joy MacPhail and Jenny Kwan where left alone to argue and defend alternative policies to the Gordon Campbell autocratic style of government. Baseline was proud to help NOW Communications in the design of the BC NDP communications political campaign back then. It was to be one of many NDP Campaigns across Canada we would work on with bold and innovative design to communicate their respective messaging. November 23, 2003, Carole James was elected leader of the provincial NDP and in the 2005 provincial election, Carole James surprised many supporters and critics alike with a very strong electoral showing, winning 41.52% of the popular vote (a 19.96% increase from the 2001 election result) and 33 out of 79 seats in the Legislative Assembly.
Fast forward to the 2009 elections and again Baseline was proud to serve NOW as the lead graphic design studio, providing the NDP with a fresh identity package, a new and reinvigorated campaign branding and a comprehensive communication package applied to everything from buttons to a full bus wrap, which by the way won an award. Over a ten-year period, we designed NDP campaign identities for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia and the Federal NDP. We enjoyed working closely with NOW Communications and contributed our design skills on behalf of their many clients identity packages, print collateral, advertising campaigns and web designs for Unions, NGO’s and political parties. So as 2010 wound down Baseline wished everyone success in their dreams, plans, and the work we all did for social justice. v
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A big thanks for all your support In December 2010 I noticed an open competition from Canada Post for the design of the Mental Health, 2011 stamp, a first where the corporation would allow all Canadians a voice through social media to vote for the winning design. December can be a very slow month for active paying work and I decided – between trying to market Baseline to new clients – to give some thought to what I hoped would be a compelling design solution. My black sketch book became the starting point for conceptual and visual thoughts. I researched past stamp finalists, looked at the stats for mental health issues across Canada (they are many and varied) and decided to approach the issue not through typically representing people but rather the overwhelming numbers of fellow Canadians suffering mental health issues.
The following was my submitted and requested verbal rationale to answer the brief: “ I found it striking that in your introduction to this competition, one in five Canadians are suffering from mental illness in one form or another. I have attempted to reflect the Canadian part of this story (Coast to Coast, North to South) with what I think most of us have come to associate our country with, the maple leaf. It has five sections and one has fallen. The rest is self-explanatory and as I love typography the message is clear even at the actual size these stamps would be reproduced.” I didn’t win, but became a semi-finalist – announced through an email from the Canada Post Corporation – in April of 2011. What I didn’t submit – which was perhaps an important error – was a bilingual version included in the illustration on the far right. I wanted to thank all my family, friends, coworkers and clients for supporting me during December and January’s public social media voting and wished the very best to the winner, Miriane Majeau for her submission. v
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Concrete Typography and CS4 As a graphic designer, words have played an important role in my work. Function has always superseded form, clarity and ease of reading uppermost in my consideration of a page layout whether for print or the web. So it’s no surprise, that I should, on occasion, be moved to create a more artistic approach when using letters and typographic forms. The following are a series of vector based pieces I created in 2011 for the blog, lacking any other earth shattering creative ideas I might of had. These would have been very difficult to produce using traditional methods, even with photo mechanical processes, the steps required for the necessary transparent layering would have taken days to produce a finished product. The following examples probably took me four hours using Adobe Illustrator and can be easily transferred to any medium in minutes: live…love…die. good…bad…ugly. inspire… inspired… desire. dream…wonder…create
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Maybe I could make t-shirts with these designs? warning… danger… alert As art students in the 70’s, we where lucky in having access to traditional typesetting and print departments, allowing us to experiment with both metal and wood type composition. The room was huge and contained font and spacer draws, chokes for setting, inks for custom hand printing using various Gutenberg mechanical printing presses. The smells and noises coming from this department where an amazing impression on the senses and the instructors seemed, at the time, as old as the equipment. The last illustration is one of many pieces I produced over what was an exciting foundation year covering typography, silkscreen, stone lithographic printing, etching, photography, life drawing and colour theory. v
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This couldn’t have happened! Moments when real paying jobs didn’t present themselves I kept busy using the wonders of the tools at my disposal to create graphics and commentary. As little as thirty three years ago, I didn’t even dream these programs would become so widely available. The following series, “This couldn’t have happened” I concocted using photo’s taken on a trip to the Boeing Museum in 2005 and various holiday shots in Europe taken over a four year period. The first demonstration of Photoshop that I attended was during our transition from traditional, marker layouts and pre-press to digital design and production in 1989. The people presenting the workshop had, of course, state-of-the-art equipment and excessive amounts of added memory and RAM – which during the 80’s and 90’s were very expensive – to show off the early wonders of this new tool. What took them thirty minutes to demonstrate the programs capabilities using masks, paths, multiple
layering, transitions, etc, I would later discover would took inordinate amounts of time to replicate on our newly purchased SE30. But I was mesmerized by the sheer capability and promise of this new technology that we decided to invest in more memory and more importantly, RAM which became an excellent investment, paying off within a year of operating in this new, technologically driven work environment. Many of the clients I’d worked with over a thirty year span came to rely on my growing skills in the use of not only Photoshop but also Illustrator and InDesign – originally I embraced QuarkXPress for it’s precision, typographic tools and preferences – but eventually InDesign became king for layout. Print dominated then, but the web was the driving engine of communication, so with the same creative zeal we adopted programs such as Dreamweaver, GoLive and Flash along with custom coding to round out our skills. Today almost anything can be made to happen, how high we fly is only limited by our imaginations. v
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Liberation in use of colour or is it? My first blog without the aid of visuals Using print, multi media and web content emotively. Not so long ago – perhaps even as short a period of time as 2006/07 – if you were about to embark on a political campaign, a branding, a graphic design service or design for a conference or a small company service, the print portion of the budget was – to a large extent – determined by how much money you had; four colour, effective two colour – or, if money really was an issue, black and white. Designers, communicators, marketing specialists and proprietors of small business are no longer as limited by minimal use of colour. What a liberation, one would think. But I saw many campaigns and communication programs suddenly and purposely, promoting a limited palette in their work. Black grounds with dark grey (illegible) type has become a horrible trend on the web. In print large outlines of white used to differentiate the message from a complex mix of imagery and busy backgrounds and on the web, the same use of muted colours to promote ideas, products and services.
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The idea of hiring a designer or team was and still continues to be, a necessary step toward grabbing attention and differentiating what you are selling, saying or promoting. Obviously colour plays a huge role, but increasingly I’m seeing a lack of understanding about differentiation as it relates to use of colour. In 2010 one really poor example in Vancouver came to mind; The Bread Garden, a locally grown – and one assumes successful – company, who launched their BG URBAN CAFÉ look to the downtown. An amateurish attempt to reintroduce the downtown – and I would suggest struggling – storefronts to a city luncheon market. An acronym so far removed from their root along with an ugly 1970’s brown colour scheme topped with a minimalist vector sketch of a chef’s crown, really didn’t differentiate to me, their offering. So on a positive note, there are some really wonderful local stories of success in their use of colour and respective branding and I offered readers to point them out but few responded. v
Christy Crunch ad hit the mark For ten years I had enjoyed working on a wide variety of interesting projects for NOW Communications. But few have amused me as much as when Paul Degenstein, NOW’s esteemed Chief Creative Officer, asked me into their office to be briefed on the preparation of a graphic mock up and the production for a Christy Crunch TV ad. When he read the script, in his so television voice over, I just burst out laughing and left the office with the assignment to create what everyone saw as being the Liberal 2011 product that fell off the shelf. Best negative political ad ever. v
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My (our) first week of working virtually – July 2011 Having enjoyed the close company of coworkers for twenty five years I was bewildered by the small things I was going to miss, such as the morning bus ride with fellow commuters, morning salutations with my colleagues, ordering a coffee at the Starbucks on arrival downtown, watching all the lovely young people briskly going about their business. It was in short damn lonely, I was missing the numerous and varied human interactions of every day life. They had simply gone, and I was left with – albeit a wonderful view of the North Shore mountains – little else in the way of those daily human interactions and touch points with other warm blooded animated creatures engaged on so many levels. The first week; was busy putting the virtual office in order, making the desk on which the computers, printers, scanner etc, would reside. Creating docket sheets in an attempt to stay organized. Getting used to the wonderful program David Lach had produced for the team administration. But it felt so unreal. Introspectively I began to ponder how and why we got here, working in our respective homes yet maintaining a semblance of an active busy office.
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Second week; the office was ready for my frenzied and anticipated work load, frantic phone calls from clients, the interactive requirement of connecting with all my coworkers. Dealing with the same deadline requirements and rushing to deliver end-product to web servers and printers. Well the reality was anything but. I stood looking out from my fully equipped virtual office on the North Shore mountains and sighed that the phone wasn’t ringing, my email inbox carried the same old trash we all get, but no clients scrambling for my time. I made phone calls of course, only to be told “call back later ”, or “we’ll call you”. Email marketing attempts went predominantly unanswered and the daily pace in front of my suburban window started to take on the dull repetition that suburbs do. Old man with dog; 9:00 am, the lady with grandchildren walking to wherever they walk; 10.00 am, the neighbour across the street cutting his lawn, then the neighbour next to him doing the same. 12:00 pm; LUNCH! time. Ah yes the kitchen is just downstairs, I felt – like one does – when in hospital, meals tend to become the highlight of the experience.
Well never mind I thought, it’s mid-summer, the weather is brilliant, I can sit in the garden with my personally prepared fare. No restaurant with the gregarious sounds of people, well dressed and not so well dressed busy people, fully engaged in chatter, eating and drinking. I shared my meal with the birds for company and a feeling in the pit of my stomach that no one was going to call, or email me, even facebook seemed devoid of any relief from this increasing sense of loss and isolation. Of course like all change, it takes an inordinate amount of time to adjust, but I do miss the real life interactions with people, they are the corner stone to our joint creative endeavours, they inspire, anger and engage us to perform, so I will visit the city more often. As a friend and writer pointed out to me, “you have to walk the streets to suck up the money”. I would add suck,
inhale and liberally enjoy watching and interacting with my fellow humans. That’s what I miss whilst working virtually, but the phone is ringing again and the email inbox is producing an equal measure of real-work related messages, that perhaps being busy again will take my eyes off the North Shore mountains and the comings and goings of those regulars walking their dogs and children or cutting their lawns. I actually wrote this post on the plane flying to England and looking forward to our anticipated trip to the Eastern Mediterranean, a promised gift from Jean – my wife and life partner – once the physical office was closed and the virtual alternative was up-and-running. Life is good and work did and continues to flow, but what an adjustment. v
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In just two weeks an annual report and website hit the ground running July 2011, our first year of working virtually. The more time spent in this business, the higher your confidence grows, allowing you the time to provide a creative solution to briefs. Constants such as deadlines, budgets and client aspirations don’t change in print or web applications, but there is that constant excitement in winning a project or contract, then begins the challenge to meet the needs of a particular print or web assignment. You sense through your clients eyes, the heightened expectation expressed when they give you the green light, and you feel the confidence of knowing you can and will deliver. I’m sure this is true in many creatively driven businesses, but I’ve had the incredible pleasure of living this adrenaline rush for a long time with a long list of diverse clients. Having returned from a trip to Europe in the summer of 2011, I was asked to complete a website and social media channel for a long-standing friend and accomplished Vancouver illustrator Barb Wood and
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an annual report for COTBC (College of Occupational Therapists of BC, all conceived and delivered in an incredibly tight time frame. As individuals of a collective, Baseline took an incredible risk in going virtual after twenty five years – as no success happens in isolation – but the website for Barb, required the combined talents of my associates Andrew Ware, Senior Production Artist and David Lach, Senior Web Developer, to complete effectively and on time. For the design of an annual report, there are two requirements, get it out on time – email – and if marketing requires it, an effective print version but above all, be creative within budget and go beyond expectations. I leave you to be the judge of these two projects, but I think we accomplished all of the above. Both Barb Wood and COTBC went away very satisfied. v
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My last blog…
…reflecting on twenty five years at Baseline. November 30th, 2011 marked the end of a twelve month journey through a blog celebrating and reviewing our past work, shared skills, successes and challenges. Over the twelve months, I’d reviewed – through illustrated stories – the clients we have had the privilege to work with: not-for-profits, government, political parties and small businesses, requiring our professional design and production team to tell their respective stories. One story that really has never been given sufficient space (though mentioned) is the work of my esteemed partner of twenty five years, David Lach. He was an articulate master of the many web delivered tools that we had created. He loved dissecting problems and was a person of detail, thinking through the myriad of scenarios in any given project or problem, before moving forward with a wonderful and appropriate conclusion, whether applied to a website, an online newsletter or other web delivered product. David – with assistance from David Steiner, our other Code Professional and Andrew Ware our Senior
Production Artist – created the back-end engine that managed and generated the CHF Canada website, a complex project for the national co-operative housing organization. David was also responsible for developing much of a totally web-based information system for the Agency for Co-operative Housing. He designed and created incredible coding along with easy to use CMS, back end editing tools, for online delivered newsletters such as: Health Match BC, The College of Licensed Practical Nurses of BC. He created our virtual company administration page as we entered this new method of working virtually. A transparent tool where we could keep track of jobs, create job dockets, post times on current assignments, tally times worked, post external expenses and at the end of the day provide the ability to generate invoices, sent electronically (without paper output) to our clients. It’s now been five years since Baseline closed its physical doors and two years since we officially retired the company name. I feel very privileged to have worked with some wonderful people and experience the support of a long roster of engaging clients. v
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About Ian Bateson Education
Influences
1970 – 1974 Lancaster College Of Art. Graduated with Honours, Illustration and Graphic Design.
During his extensive travels, lan has visited some of the major world galleries; the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Tate in London, the Lourve in Paris, the National in Washington and Biennale in Venice. Through these collections, from the 18th Century William Turner to Picasso in the 19th Century and Willem de Kooning and the American abstract expressionists in the 20th Century, Ian discovered wonder and amazement when in the presence of such exceptional works of art.
Experience During the 1970’s and early 80’s Ian showed a dedication in the field of illustration and graphic design, having built a solid reputation with the publishing industry as an illustrator of children’s books and a designer and illustrator for academic publications. Ian worked with Douglas & McIntyre, UBC Press, Harbour Publishing and various other international houses. From 1986 to 2012, Ian helped build Baseline Type & Graphics Cooperative into a thriving creative design studio working for major corporations, businesses, government agencies and NGO’s telling there stories through well crafted design and marketing solutions. Ian uses the skills he gained over thirty years, to apply his thoughts and imagination through personal, interpretive art. Ideas e xpressed through sketch books and apps are output to either giclees or limited edition laser prints.
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The art of typography is also a keen interest influenced by William Caslon, John Baskerville for their wonderful type designs and Ian Hamilton Finlay, Dom Sylvester Houédard and Edwin Morgan, for their amazing concrete poetry.
Artistic expression Ian creates an impression, mood and emotion through use of colour and form. He takes from his immediate environment and reflects a visual metaphor using assemblage, painting, and for the past four years he has worked with an app called Procreate using his iPad.
P u b l i c a t i o n s : f r o m I a n B a t e s o n ’ s S t u d i o 2 0 12 -16 A five week Christmas break spent with my Mother in North West England, allowed for some downtime between our extensive trips – in a hired car – to produce these fourteen pieces using Procreate. The book portrays the finished artwork accompanied by notes and the raw photographs used to create each piece. View the book here: https://issuu.com/icreate/docs/ a_month_of_procreating_in_england
An exciting and sad year, April saw my wife Jean and I fulfill a long wanted trip to China and we were also saddened to learn of the death of a good friend, Mark Budgen. These were the experiences that shaped these works produced both in Canada and England. View the book here: http://issuu.com/icreate/docs/ 2015_procreated_inspirations
A journal of our fifteen day tour to China, an amazing journey that provided an array of images to work with in my digital art. By the time we arrived back in Shanghai for our return to Vancouver we had covered approximately 4,1771 kilometers or 2,596 miles by road air and water. View the book here: https://issuu.com/icreate/docs/2015_china_visited 83
Twenty eight pieces – by no means the entirety of my output – from my remaining 2014 volume of work representing the themes of air, land, water and other. Many are derived from my travels to England, the US, Europe and Canada using photo’s, painting and effects to create the multi-layered art work. View the book here: https://issuu.com/icreate/docs/ 2014procreated_inspirations
Whimsical interpretations of fossils, skulls and bones – photographed at the Natural History Museum during a trip to New York – positioned within environments I had visited and photographed in other parts of the world. You can review the original photographs, descriptions of my process and the final art when using an iPad and the Procreate app. View the book here: https://issuu.com/icreate/docs/2014_iprocreate2b
A trip – September, 2013 – to Alaska, photographs taken at the Fairbanks Museum and also during a five day tour of the Denali Park. My first ISSUU book of work, completed in 2012-13 using an iPad and the Procreate app. View the book here: http://issuu.com/icreate/docs/i_procreate
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From a long desire to utilize some of the many photographs taken with my second digital camera and before obtaining an iPad, this was my first attempt through a series of sixteen specific Vancouver photographs that I converted into art using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop in 2012. This series won an adjudicated place in the Ferry Building Gallery and my first group show in 2013. View the book here: https://issuu.com/icreate/docs/ my_views_from_vancouver
I’ve struggled for some years to open my stored illustration work (and there are lots) done back in the early 80’s. Most of the ISSUU books I’ve completed over the last four years have been reflective of my work using Procreate or for my friend Alex Waterhouse-Hayward reviewing his incredible photographic talent in portraiture. This is a legacy for my sons, Julian and Kim to experience what I did to both live my dream as an illustrator and feed the family. I hope I succeeded on all fronts. View the book here: https://issuu.com/icreate/docs/ 2015_a_book_about_a_book2
All materials are © Copyright, ® Registered or ™ Trademarks of our clients or Ian Bateson’s Studio.
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Children’s books: illustrated dur ing 1978-82 People of the Longhouse Published 1982, Douglas & McIntyre
People of the Ice Published 1980, Douglas & McIntyre
The Ancient Jews Published 1979, Douglas & McIntyre
People of the Trail Published 1978, Douglas & McIntyre
Forty seven pages lavishly illustrating the lives of the Iroquoian people who lived in the Great Lakes basin and St. Lawrence River Valley.
Extensive illustrations help tell the tale of how the Inuit once lived and survived in one of the worlds harshest climates.
Illustrations provide a clear understanding of how the Jews lived and prospered in the land of Canaan for fifteen hundred years.
Labrador to the Rockies and northwest to Alaska, this illustrated book tells the story of the Algonkian and Athapaskan tribes.
Exhibitions: Dec 2013: North Vancouver Community Arts Council, Anonymous Show. Mar 2014: Ferry Building Gallery, West Vancouver. Abstracting Colour Photography.
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Nov 2014: Federation of Canadian Artists, Digital art show. Dec 2014: North Vancouver Community Arts Council, Anonymous Show.
Dec 2015: North Vancouver Community Arts Council, Anonymous Show.
Review samples at: ianbatesonstudio.com Contact Ian at: tel 604 984 9283 cell 604 809 8409 mail ibateson@icloud.com
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