New look for the Canadian Championship

After Amway renewed their title sponsorship of the Canadian Championship, I was tasked in updating its visuals and brand. Again, the logo was not going to change, but I needed to create brand guidelines and update all applications (stationary, PowerPoint theme, etc.) accordingly. Also I needed to create a large backdrop that would be used behind the players and coach in the pressroom for media conferences and interviews. You will observe that I included the hexagonal mesh into the design to tie it with the Canada Soccer branding. Below are few pages from the brand guidelines and pictures of the media backdrop.

Note: The Amway Canadian Championship is the tournament involving the 4 Canadian professional clubs (FC Edmonton, Impact de Montréal, Toronto FC, Vancouver Whitecaps FC) and serves as the Canadian qualification for the CONCACAF Champions League. The 2013 Canadian Champion is the Montréal Impact.

Brand guidelines

Media Backdrop

Marco Schällibaum, Impact Head Coach, after 2^nd leg semi final win in Montréal. Photo by François Mellet

 Copyright Canada Soccer 2013, by Dany Pépin

Design for the 2013 AGM

Each year the Canadian Soccer Association’s board of directors and the provincial associations members assemble during an Annual General Meeting (AGM) to discuss different issues surrounding canadian soccer. For this year’s assembly, I simply used the new Canada Soccer brand to design the AGM accreditations, backdrops and some other applications.

 Copyright Canada Soccer 2013, by Dany Pépin

Rebranding the Canadian Soccer Association

One of my first order of business when I started my job at the Canadian Soccer Association (Canada Soccer) was to rebrand the non-profit organization. Besides a logo, the branding was almost non-existent. With that said, this was not a full rebrand because since the Women’s National Team won the bronze medal at the London 2012 Women’s Olympic Football Tournament, the Canada Soccer logo was more recognized than ever. So, I had to develop brand guidelines, a graphic signature and all the applications to go along the existing logo.

The main inspiration behind the graphic signature was the hexagonal netting of a modern soccer goal. It is the target and ultimate objective that every player is trying to reach. As an organization, it represent Canada Soccer’s quest “or goal” to reach the World Cup and for Canada to become a leading soccer nation.

The final product was well received by the organization and with this new corporate brand, the provincial associations seemed to be more inclined than ever to unite and develop the future of soccer in Canada. The short version of the brand guidelines is available here.

 Copyright Canada Soccer 2013, by Dany Pépin

An overdue update

I’ve been so busy in the last 8 months with my new job and a couple of side jobs, that I’m totally behind on my posting. So here is the update.

I now work “officially” a the web editor in the Canadian Soccer Association business development department. My position’s responsabilities include Web Content Management, Writing and Editing, translation and graphic design. Since I started 80% of my work is Graphic Design related. Even if the hour are long, the job is very fulfilling and rewarding especially when you feel your are making a difference in the organization. Working in sports is not all glam and fame as one might think when watching sports on TV. The team(s) is always on the forefront, but now I understand how much work there is behind the curtains, especially for amateur sports in Canada. While working for the Association I also do some graphics work for the National Organizing Committee of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015. With this new job I’ve rediscovered “The Beautiful Game” as it is called.

I’ll try to post some of my design work when I get the proper authorization to do so. Some of this work will be official projects or others designs that were not used. I will continue to post freelance jobs when I have the chance.

Collectible cards store identity

The guys at Collect-Edition, a collectible card store located in La Prairie (South shore of Montreal), hired me to develop their new identity. Collect-Edition focuses primarely on sports cards (mainly hockey) and a good portion of the store is dedicated to collectible card game (CCG) such as Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc.

They needed a identity that would represent their small business and would speak to their client profile. Since the main business of Collect-Edition is sports related, I oriented my design to something similar to a professional sports team logo or emblem. My first draft was focused only on hockey (the essence of their business). They asked that I add a fantasy element within the logo to reach the CCG audience, which explain the red dragon behind the store’s name. The addition of the silhouette of a hockey player on the front card adds to their core business.

Collect-Edition is located at 555, rue Notre-Dame, La Prairie, QC J5R 5E5 – 514-236-9596

 Copyright Dany Pepin 2012

Motion design corporate presentation

In my quest to master motion design, I started a personal project inspired by the title sequence of the miniseries The Pacific and The Borgias. Since I already worked for them in the past, I decided to use the Caisse Populaire Desjardins Rideau d’Ottawa 100th anniversary as the subject of this project. The one minute sequence is a corporate presentation of the origin and milestones on this financial institution’s history. The video is available in 720p on Youtube.

 Copyright Dany Pepin 2012

A Time-lapse Experiment

There are many beautiful and inspiring Time-lapse videos on the web. Because of my interest in every visual art form, I decided to try and make one myself as an experiment. Since I don’t own a DSLR camera, the shots don’t look as professional as I liked. The intervals (30s) in between the shots was a bit too long and made the final video fast and a bit choppy. Nonetheless, the combination of the animated photography with the music by Chris Blackwell offers quite a view of by bedroom window.

 Copyright Dany Pepin 2012

School projet S6 : Radio-Canada/CBC Re-branding

This project involved a re-branding exercise of a Canadian public company. The development of the new brand extended to the research of the character of the brand, the style presentation (moodboard), the creation of the new logo and applications including a presentation book. The new brand has undergone an evolution rather than a transformation in order to maintain the reputation of this Crown corporation. Below are some images taken from the presentation book. The video moodboard (see article) and the details presentation book (7MB 42 pages) are available in french.

 copyright Dany Pepin 2012

School project S6 – Aids initiative poster

This poster project was targeting another social awareness subject: Aids. The objective was to promote the Federal government initiative to fight against HIV / AIDS in Canada. This initiative provides funding for different prevention and support programs.

The first poster symbolizes all the support given by the population and AIDS programs. A group of red ribbons forming a balloon supports the AIDS victims. The hand-written words “Together we can support AIDS victims” ties with the poster’s visuals.

This poster is one of a series of three. Two hands holding in the shape of a heart with a mosaic of symbols in the background representing heterosexual and gay couples. The hand-written word “Together we can fight the prejudice of AIDS” ties again with the support given by the different AIDS programs and the population.

This poster was not submitted because it didn’t tie well with the government initiative. Nevertheless, I posted it because I liked the idea.

All the posters below were abandoned ideas and work-in-progress.

 copyright Dany Pepin 2012

School project S6 – Stop child labor

For this project I had to tackle the difficult subject of child labor. The posters below are self-explanatory. I’m especially proud of the first one.

 copyright Dany Pepin 2012