In the words of Timmy Douglas

To be precise, it should be Doctor Timmy Douglas.
The quote : “Courage my friends; tis’ not too late to build a better world” has been made beyond life size (21 feet long to be exact) at the newly opened HEALTH for ALL Family Health Team – the Markham Family Medicine Teaching Unit facility in Markham-Stouffville Hospital. They have approached us to create a feature wall for their Waiting Room bearing the words of the good doctor Timmy Douglas. Of course we jumped at it.

Working with the colour palette of the waiting room chairs, existing wall colours, we picked a deep ocean turquoise colour for the base of the feature wall and designed letters of varying fonts to emphasis on the key words in the quote. By further playing with the thickness of the CNC-cut acrylic letters, and finishing in both matt white and brushed aluminium, the quote finally came to life. According to our client, people from other departments and hospitals have been visiting the facility just to see this wall …. we are very honoured.

Part of this project also involved colour consultation for the Doctors’ and Residents’ offices and also design of their logo wall in the waiting area.


Published on May 8, 2011 12:52 AM.
Filed under: environmental graphics, signage

what do lotus flowers, fishes, bamboo & cherry blossoms have in common ?

Detail of graphic

Detail of graphic

Table graphics

Why are more and more interiors using graphic elements ?
Simple answer : is to create spatial DRAMA !
Environmental Graphics is what we call it.

Just completed some projects using graphics to punch out tables in a restaurant and to accent a feature wall. We used digital illustration to create patterns and even “paint” an entire Chinese Ink Painting for one project. Client has asked for the projects to remain anonymous, so we can’t tell you where Maybe you can take a wild guess.

Bamboo Chinese Ink Painting done in Vector

Custom Wall graphics

Published on July 10, 2009 1:34 AM.
Filed under: environmental graphics, restaurant interior graphics, signage

Ginza on the Go…



custom back-lit menu board with magnetic backing, direct UV printed on acetate.


Channel Letters at the fabrication shop … look how dark the colour looks unlit.

…and lit.


Tree Lattice finally up …

It’s been more than a month of working on the sushi restaurants….wish there were more sushi-sampling though. The 3-dimensional Tree Lattice, Sushi Bar poster, banners, exterior signage, menu boards, menus, take-out menus and business cards are all done. Seems like a lot of work and sleepless nights have gone into it, but i think the great team effort paid off. Ginza sushi finally opened their doors at Yorkville’s trendy downtown location last weekend. I heard they were giving out roses to passer-bys on mother’s day, May 10th. We still have the actual Main Menus waiting to be completed. Our translucent PP covers still need to be UV printed, die-cut and shipped. So it won’t be another week or two before we see them.

Anyway, here is a preview of all that was completed…including some behind the scene construction photos. Oh, did we also mention the pains we went through trying to achieve the right tone of purple for the exterior channel letters? We experimented and finally used 4 layers of vinyl in digital print colour to get the right colour when lit. Never have we gone to such lengths to do colour matching. Remind me never to do digital printing for outdoor signs. Let’s just stick with the Avery colours.

Published on May 15, 2009 10:43 PM.
Filed under: branding, design, environmental graphics, restaurant interior graphics, signage

Environmental graphics of the “raw” nature


We’ve been working with Dialogue 38 on some interior graphics and art direction for a new sushi restaurant at Yorkville. It’s still in production now but i think will be exciting to see it up. It’s a 3D tree lattice structure that wraps around the walls and ceiling of the entire space. It’s going to feel like dining in the envelope of trees. We are also working to finalize a 4 x 10 feet poster image at the back of the sushi bar…will update once we are done. Looks like we will doing a lot more environment graphics which is kind of like going back to our roots and training in architecture. Don’t you believe that things always end in full circles? Some people call it karma … fate or destiny. For us, as long as we working the creative side of the brain, we are happy and can call it our own.

Published on March 28, 2009 10:41 PM.
Filed under: branding, environmental graphics, restaurant interior graphics, signage

New Year greetings …


Happy New Year !! The first entry in 2009 is about 6 days late due to all the festivities. We’ve had a good year, with friend’s support and a network of business associates that work hard to help each other. We’re hoping to ramp it up in the new year. Our holiday e-card gives thanks to all who has made our year good. Thanks to my friend Rossana who inspired our illustration of holiday Elfs…

Well, enroute to deliver holiday greetings to clients and friends, we dropped by Quinceflowers to drop off our FAMOUS chocolate truffles. We perfected 6 varieties this year, featuring a laminated wood packaging, printed brown paper wrappers and finished off with baker’s twine and a card made with my new Big-shot die-cut machine. I love the die-cuts …

And coincidentally it was also Rosie’s (Quinceflower’s owner) birthday that day. So it was meant to be and we had to take a shot of the wonderful sign we designed for them.

I think the New Year will be full of such beautiful coincidences….

Published on January 6, 2009 10:23 PM.
Filed under: chocolates, holidays, packaging, signage

Signs and Flowers

The Quinceflowers main signage is finally on the way to fabrication. We confirmed and did all the colour matching at Burry Signs last week and it’s good to go. Can’t wait to see it up on the storefront. Since we are on the topic of signs, the side door sign that we designed for Quinceflowers must have been so attractive that it was stolen a week after it was up….Or it could have been the bad neighbourhood. This ‘was’ the sign >>


Published on September 10, 2008 9:58 PM.
Filed under: branding, design, environmental graphics, signage

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