Amusing stories & views by us
To blog, or not to blog, that is the question. Through these musings, we hope to give you a better sense of who we are, what we believe in, and share our (design) perspective. Below, explore our creative opinion pieces and discover design tips and tricks to use in your daily life.
Leadership
Jennifer
Birds do it; bees do it, and even creatives can do it
In November, I attended DesignThinkers 2023, a design conference put on by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) in Toronto. I was thrilled to discover that Chris Do, an Emmy award-winning designer from the US, was the Keynote Speaker and would talk about selling. I had stumbled upon Chris’s work a year earlier, particularly […]
2024-04-02
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Design thinking
Morgan
Designer Spotlight: Morgan’s Creative Process
This month, we sat down with graphic designer Morgan to chat about her creative process. Can you share a pivotal moment or experience in your life that ignited your passion for design? How has that influenced your creative journey since then? It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what may have flipped the switch towards design in […]
2024-03-29
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Design thinking
Owen
What I’ve learned in my first 6 months working at Initiate Marketing.
One of my favourite things about working at Initiate early in my design career, has been being surrounded by design experts that have so much knowledge to share. Here are 6 things I’ve learned over the last 6 months that have improved my design skills and workflow. 1. “Export for Screens” in Illustrator allows for […]
2024-03-26
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Client stories
Kevin
Propel video series
Tourism and hospitality had been decimated by the pandemic, and Tourism HR Canada’s Propel Student Work Placement Program was poised to help the industry start down the road toward recovery. They came to us in late 2021 to create some videos to promote the program. There was one part of the project that presented us […]
2024-03-19
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B2B high tech
Culture
Christi
My move into trade show design
Before Initiate, I had very little real-life experience designing for print from scratch. At a previous print production job, I was using templated sizes for documents, and nothing was larger than 12×18 inches. The company itself was the client since we were designing our own products, and I was sending my files to the senior […]
2024-03-12
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Culture
Design thinking
Morgan
HOW did I end up here? Or, my first-ever industry conference
I was the first placement student from Algonquin College that Initiate hired. After just a month and a half with the company, I got to attend the prestigious HOW Design Live Conference in Nashville with the entire team. This is my experience. Diving straight into the deep end After a trip into Academia to study […]
2024-03-05
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Leadership
Jennifer
Before quiet quitting, there was just… quitting
In June 2020, I quit my job and left an industry I had known for over twenty years. The idea had been percolating for months, but I took the world coming to a stop as a sign from the universe that some changes needed to happen. So quit I did. With quiet quitting getting so […]
2024-02-19
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Design thinking
Jamie
Enhance your web browser with these designer extensions
Web browsers are easy to view with complacency. We mainly use them to search the internet, and in that aspect, all the brands available — Google Chrome, OS Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge — do the exact same job. And that’s the extent that most of us expect from our browsers, with exceptions being […]
2024-02-12
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Culture
Christi
“How was work today?”
Every single evening when I get home, my family asks this question, and every single evening I enthusiastically answer: “It was great!”, “It was so good!” and I mean it I came to this realization a few months into working at Initiate, and a year later there has been maybe one day that was just […]
2024-02-05
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Culture
Anish
Work-life balance of a new father
Why juggling everything works, for me I’ve always enjoyed keeping myself busy. I’ve worked as a full-time designer and part-time freelancer for the past 18 years while simultaneously teaching for the last 12 years; some semesters, teaching as many as 4 nights a week. Staying busy helps me stay focused and be more creative—I’m always […]
2024-01-26
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Culture
Camilla
Camilla’s hiring process
Applying for any job is a daunting process. Is your resume formatted for ATS (application tracking system) while still being grammatically correct and not just a compilation of words needed for scanning? Did you use the right terminology in the industry with the latest acronyms? Is your cover letter the perfect balance of confidence and […]
2024-01-26
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Leadership
Jennifer
Where some of my learning will come from
From a business perspective, I look at all the books I collected over the years that I did not get to read and place them in order of what I need to know now anticipating what I’ll need to know more of in the future. Thus, in the spirit of sharing, here are my top […]