20 years of Canadian logo design.

By 2019, I would’ve completed 20 years working in graphic design. Now I don’t claim to be Paul Rand, but I have done pretty well for myself designing logos for other people’s businesses, that incorporates an equal measure of creative concept, strategy, and playfulness.

Today I run my own design studio in Toronto, called “Rayvn Design”, that offers branding, website design, and digital marketing services to startups and small businesses.
Logo designs have come a long way since the turn of the millennium, yet their purpose remains the same — to visually communicate the nature of the product or service that the business provides. This is me exploring my design journey for the last 20 years …
In 2004, the first logo I designed that got a lot of eyeballs was for a Canadian gameshow called, “You Bet Your Ass”.

It was aired on The Comedy Network, and followed a blackjack and casino motif, with contestants answering questions on popular culture to earn points. The contestant with the most points at the end of the show was the winner. The show was hosted by comedian Stewart Francis and his co-host, Sitara Hewitt. See below opening theme:
I would say logo designs in the late 90s and early 2000s were all about splash. The digital era was upon us, and people were consuming more and more of their media on screen, and so we designers employed skeuomorphism into our logo designs by using gradients, drop shadows, and faux wood and metallic textures meant to bring depth to our work. It was our way of mimicking a 3D space in a 2D world.
I was one of the first wave of “New Media Artists” to come out at the start of the new millennium. During my graduating year of 1999, when I had my portfolio reviewed, I was told that my work was “abysmal”. One of the reviewers described my work as “Techno-Post-Nuclear Garbage” (ie. edgy for the sake of being edgy). Another reviewer described my work as being very ‘utilitarian’ and represented the opposite of ‘high-culture’, and I should give up my dreams of ever working for the likes of ‘Nike’ or an ‘Oakleys’ (which back in the day was the high-watermark for pristine design aesthetic). Instead, I was destined to do work for all the “mom & pop” shops out there.


I wasn’t discouraged though. 1999 was a very exciting year for me. It was the year of the Y2K Bug, and everyone was anticipating a financial melt-down. Multimedia software like “Flash”, “Director” and “Shockwave” were all the buzz. Most graphic designers at the time dreamt of working for a print magazine publications (specifically “Wired” and “Ray Gun” which was art-directed by the likes of David Carson). But not me, I was more interested in motion graphics & animation; and being able to create logos and brand identities in motion. A couple of years after graduating, I enrolled into the “Vancouver Film School’ and studied 3D animation. A year later I worked as a Visual Effects artist on movies like Resident Evil & Dawn of the Dead.
However my first love was always logo design & branding, and so I got the opportunity to work on a couple of broadcast design pieces where I was able to do both:
From 2004 to 2007, I was highly sought after. I did motion graphics, animation, and visual effects post production work for the likes of Coke Zero, Panasonic, Playstation, and Spike TV.
Then the recession happened.
The visual effects studio that I worked at, started laying off people in droves. Companies & brands were not willing to spend money on splashy animation work. I lost my job, and so I had to rethink my entire career. I became a solopreneur, offering freelance services in graphic design & animation. It was during this time that I got in touch with one of my old high-school buddies (Murali Krishnan ) who would later become one of my business partners 10 years down the line. Back then he worked in Marketing & Communication, for the food service industry, specifically for Chartwells Compass Group, that provides nourishing meals for students from kindergarten to colleges and universities. For me, it was refreshing because it allowed me to go back to basics, and concentrate on logo design & brand identity design outside the realm of motion & broadcast.



Another thing I started noticing about logo design trends in general towards the late 2000, was that it was starting to get more flat & designers were employing minimalism. It was the rise of web 2.0. Flat design logos were more crisper, cleaner, and had a more modern feel, and a minimal distraction to the substance of what’s being communicated.
In 2010, I went from being a solopreneur designer to becoming an Art-Director at a Toronto Ad agency called Cleansheet. Here I learned from Creative Director, Neil McOstrich, who also is a copywriter and taught me the importance of storytelling, and how that fits in with the overall brand. It took my logo designing skills to a whole new level — I found myself creating work that’s more intelligent and deeper in meaning. While I was there we did some award-winning work on alcohol beverage branding for a Canadian brewery, called Creemore Springs — specifically their experimental craft-beer line called, “Mad & Noisy”.

Since creative combinations were a core feature with this experimental series of beers, we made the “&” sign central to our design. It brought together dynamic illustrations that represented elements of the particular beer, everything from French hens to fire-breathing hydras. Imagination was key to the mix; now craft beer lovers would find out what it tasted like.

Another logo that I created while at Cleansheet, was “Active At School” — a Canada-wide initiative to get 1 hour of physical activity for kids & youth in schools. It was that of a kid jumping over a book. Another “playful” logo, was “Run for Playgrounds”, a fund-raising initiative launched by Canadian Tire (a big household store retailer here in Canada) to raise money to build playgrounds in poorer neighbourhoods. This was a hand-drawn logo I created using water-colour paint.

In 2017, I got the itch to become an entrepreneur again. This time I wasn’t going to do it alone. I partnered with Murali Krishnan, who would be the Strategic Director while I be the Creative Director. Our startup design studio would be based out of Toronto & Boston, and would not only offer branding and digital marketing services, but focus on the ENTIRE user experience. So this meant venturing into experientially, architectural, and spatial design, and combining it with emerging technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality. Our company would have architects & interior designers, working hand in hand with brand strategists, graphic designers, animators, programmers and 3D artists, and VR & AR specialists.
Coming up with a name for our innovative design studio was quite the task. For some strange reason, all the logo names we came up with for our business alluded to animals. The first name we came up with was nmbl (pronounced ‘nimble’) .. mainly because we were small, nimble, and crafty and were able to more more faster than some of the larger creative agencies out there.


We finally settled on the name “Rayvn Design”. Why did we call our studio “Rayvn” ? Because a Raven is a very intelligent bird that is able to adapt to various environments. But more importantly, our design philosophy was to look at every brand holistically from a raven’s eye view.
The “Ray” in Rayvn alluded to vray.. the 3D rendering engine we use to do our architectural visualization.



Lately we’ve been doing a lot of innovative work in the tech startup space. In fact, Toronto just beat San-Fransisco in terms of Tech jobs. And we couldn’t be better positioned — we’re a startup that’s helping other startups — or applying that disruptive mentality to large legacy companies who feel their branding is getting a bit lackluster, or disrupted by smaller & more nimble startups.


Looking back now on how far I’ve come in my career — I’ve gone from being a logo designer & motion graphics artist to a Creative Director & Brand Strategist. The work we do is no longer trading dollars for hours based purely on our execution, instead we’re getting paid to think and conceptualize. We don’t bill by the hour — we bill by the VALUE we provide our clients. Sure we may not have a Nike or an Oakleys as a client — those are already well established brands; what gets us excited is working with the underdog challenger brands, who could one day be the next Nike or Oakley. We believe that the success of any company today is determined by its ability to create memorable, satisfying, and brand-differentiating user experiences with creative content & story-telling that is both interesting and fun.
After all, Albert Einstein probably said it best:

