On the grid: neighbourhood guides by local creatives / June 2, 2016 by Samantha Murray

Design is storytelling. So who better to tell a city’s story than its designers, who live, work and breathe the neighbourhoods they are proud to call home.

Curated by designers around the world, meet On the Grid: neighbourhood guides by local creatives.

On the Grid offers a unique experience for locals and tourists alike to visit neighbourhoods in cities around the world, and explore its design communities’ favourites – everything from bars and sweets to parks and fitness. The project was started by design agency, Hyperakt, whose team wanted a platform to share their newly discovered neighbourhood gems after moving into an office in the Gowanus neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York. People around the world got excited about the opportunity to tell their own unique stories, and On the Grid has become a giant collaborative project that is continuing to grow. Currently, there are neighbourhood guides in over 70 international cities, with new cities curated every week. In Toronto alone, there are 19 neighbourhood guides, and five more “coming soon” curated by our fellow design studios.

The beauty of the guides is that they are casual in nature and accessible to anyone with Internet access. There is no hidden agenda, and it is all about sharing tidbits of information and honest reviews about how locals live and love their areas.

We are still newbies in our St. Lawrence/Distillery District neighbourhood but have definitely found some gems of our own. For the best Mexican food around, we head to Cocina Economica, and for a refreshing cold brew on a hot day, we look to Redline Coffee and Espresso. We also LOVE walking around the cobblestoned streets of the Distillery District with its array of shops, food and art to explore.

We recommend checking out On the Grid for some inspiration before your next free weekend in Toronto, or before planning your next trip!

I will walk 500 miles... / May 27, 2016 by Samantha Murray

The first long weekend of the summer has come and gone and we are ready to embrace the few warm summer months ahead. In the spirit of healthy competition and in an effort to make the most of the longer daylight hours, a group of Snackers are embarking on the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC), which is a 100-day journey to wellness. The goal, with our pedometers in tow, is to each walk 100,000 steps (500 miles) in 100 days, or in other words, the infamous 10,000 steps a day.

We will be walking and moving with hundreds of thousands of people from 185 countries around the world competing in the GCC.

As we track our steps, we will move on a virtual journey “around the world”. Our walk started on May 25th at the Colosseum in Rome, famous for its athletic feats and spectacles. As we walk, we will make our way around Europe and abroad, reaching and uncovering new cities and landmarks every day as we go.

We are excited for the challenge, and look forward to the extra snacking our added activity will allow us each day.

Food Art Pairings: Are you hungry yet? / May 5, 2016 by Samantha Murray

When our favourite things come together, we feel compelled to share. Food Art Pairings is a passion project that assigns popular snacks their own Pantone swatches, created by the folks at Dschwen, a creative studio based in Minneapolis. Their brief project rationale: “After years of matching pantones, it was time to change things up. We were also hungry.”

We love these pantone pairings because a: they are clever, and b: they feature some of our favourite snacks. These simple photographs each tell a huge story and the studio’s rationale speaks well about the ways our creativity is driven by our experiences, inspirations and every day interactions.

Here at Snack, we believe in fresh thinking. When we leave the office, our creativity doesn’t turn off, it continues to be ignited by every experience and event we encounter. And we bring this back to work with us. Challenging ourselves in creative ways outside of the day-to-day demands of work allows us to serve up new and innovate ideas for our clients.

Appleby Quarterly Redesign / April 15, 2016 by Samantha Murray

The Snack team is pleased to unveil our latest design project! Last summer, Appleby College invited Snack to throw our creative toques into their RFP ring for a re-imagining of their school magazine, Quarterly.

After being selected for the job, we got to work exploring cover options to help guide the potential direction of the page layout.

We provided four covers for review and discussion, and to get a better sense of what direction the client wanted to take. A key element of those discussions was our recommendation to change the magazine’s masthead – shifting the focus from "Appleby" to "Quarterly," which they embraced.

Taking all of their feedback into consideration, we made a few more modifications and nailed down the creative direction. The end result features a handsome greyhound – a nod to Appleby’s school mascot – and leverages a large, bold and bright image for a striking first impression.

We then streamlined the page layout, balancing large and small imagery throughout, created ample whitespace and bumped up the body copy a notch for improved readability. We also provided creative direction and concepts for several photoshoots.

The final product is bold, fresh, clean, consistent, easy to navigate, and fun to read. And the best part? We helped find a new way for the school to connect and engage with their alumni.