Tag: Case Studies

  • Design For Care

    Last year I had an opportunity to work with Peter Jones on a ground breaking book about approaching health care with a human-centered design approach. Many of the methodologies introduced new tools and techniques that would easily improve the lives of patients, allowing them more participation and better interactions with their caregivers and doctors. The…

  • Show Choir Canada’s Glee

    Show Choir Canada’s mission is to play a vital role in the development and support of show choirs in Canada by creating opportunities, including live competition-format presentations, that inspire youth participants to not only work together through song and dance to achieve a common goal of excellence but also grow and develop as individuals while…

  • Discover Card Contest

    Remember when you were a student at University? Now do you remember the kiosks within the front doors of your educational institution. Well for me this all came rushing back while designing this Discover Card microsite. But I have to admit I would have liked this type of interaction better than the hard sell method…

  • Mourning the Suburb

    Every so often I get a last minute phone call for help from a friend. In this case Aleksandra needed a promotional poster for a symposium she was organizing to be held at the Prefix Institute for Contemporary Art. The topic was “Mourning the Suburb – A Symposium on Dwelling, in Transition”.

  • da Costa Talent Launches Website

    da Costa Talent recently decided that they needed an online presence. They have expanded over the years to the point where they have numerous agency clients (talent) that need to be quickly referenced by their industry clients. In a time where businesses are connected online, images of their talent on their own office walls was…

  • Pfizer Sales Force Automation Tool

    The task at hand was to build Pfizer’s internal sales force application tool for their US sales team of over 45,000. This was a project that grew out of a need for better efficiency in sales within Pfizer and kept Thirst very busy for the next three years.

  • A Photographer’s Gallery

    An artist’s site always captures interest. Their online galleries are often windows into other times or worlds, real or imaginary.

  • E-zine Explodes Online

    This e-zine made its move to being an online publication and performed spectacularly well. The viewership numbers after the redesign were up substantially.

  • Sakonnet takes its Energy Online

    Sakonnet needed a first strike into the energy market to compete against longer standing risk management software firms. They hired Thirst to help them out.

  • Cahners Evolves its Vortal

    Cahners wanted to be the ‘E-business Portal’. They enjoyed a mix of advanced technology and they had a tremendous amount of wholly owned content to make it an ultimate business vortal destination.

  • Microsoft Rethinks MSN

    MSN asked for sketches for a new launch of MSN. It wanted people to have instant access to their content and they wanted it to be bright and attractive.

  • Rogers Communications Launches

    Rogers is synonymous with Canadian communications. The uber-media company needed to showcase their portfolio of companies and products and take their first serious move online.

  • IBM’s w3 Intranet

    A portion of IBM’s intranet had to be accessible by a dial-up connection but in keeping with the rest of their intranet. (also design by IAB) This particular micro site was to have everything to entice a sales associate to return regularly for updated information.

  • Gateway as a Moving Target

    Gateway was a continually large project. IAB helped with just about anything that Gateway could think of, everything from their internal sales application to an interactive marketing web-based operating system interface that was way ahead of its time. Gateway was not just exciting for its work but for its people and learning curve that it…

  • The Guardian UK Online

    The Guardian Unlimited hired Neville Brody to make the Guardian Online infinitely flexible and readable. In turn he needed help and called the IAB studious where John Schmitz and I fleshed out ideas and finalized the design.

  • Zoonlab Identity

    Zoonlab needed several logos to enhance the synthesis of its company and its products.

  • Univision moves Online

    Univision decided to make their move online. As a result, Univision’s new hispanic portal contains separate channels for content and an online shopping experience specifically designed for their culture. These designs enabled Univision to take new market share and solidify the hispanic market in the United States.

  • PHChapman Financial Logo

    The creation of a logo based on elegance for the financial world.

  • Newsweek moves Online

    Newsweek should be instantly recognizable for most people and because of this fact, the staff wanted an online extension that kept as faithful as possible to their print publication while establishing it’s own personality.

  • NetMarket gets Enhanced

    There were two basic tasks for this client: the identity was reworked – a simple colour reduction to help strengthen the brand’s image and the storefront was enhanced – quick previews and easy browsing for increased selling potential.

  • Law Firm, Hiltz Szigeti: A New Look

    This law firm wanted a more professional look for itself to bring it inline with its practise. They wanted a clean but traditional look. A standard package with basic stationary was included.

  • Galileo Interactive visual identity

    This was a start-up firm based in New York City that needed a visual identity for its new CMS product.

  • A Logo for Twentieth Century Fox

    Thirst creates another well received logo, this time for Twentieth Century Fox.

  • The New York Daily News Online

    This was a very involved online extension of a well respected and time honored print brand. The look and feel of the New York Daily News in its traditional printed medium is unmistakable to every New Yorker and so the task at hand was formidable. The starting point was the clean up of a trusted…

  • da Costa Talent Management

    da Costa was a small company that rose quickly, they soon realized that their fledgling ‘look and feel’ was unsatisfactory for its capabilities and thought that they needed a more professional image… to match their own. Thirst created a logo and mark for them that was highly visible and clean. Based on this new identity…

  • Peace Magazine

    This was an independent magazine (as you would think independent movie), lots passion and no money. This redesign and templating structure was voluntary work for a worthy cause. It was mass produced by photocopiers, hand stapled and distributed to the various magazine and book stores in Toronto.

  • Midas

    Midas hired Thirst for a lot of it’s internal promotional work and bilingual communications. Whether it was cue cards for employee learning or their internal magazine, they wanted to help their company by focusing on their employees enjoyment and sound teaching practises.

  • ODA (Ontario Dental Association)

    As it is a non-profit, this company has to use it’s money sparingly and engage resources only when they believe it can help their directives. They service both Ontario dentists and the people of Ontario to help educate them and to provide consistency to the practise. Thirst tried to help them with their publication redesign.

  • Canadian Living Redesign

    After too many years of different people leading the art direction for this magazine and influencing it’s graphic language in one direction or another, it had become unfocused and therefore hard to read. Canadian Living hired Roger Black to simplify and bring back editorial content to every page of their publication. Fortunately, Thirst helped with…

  • The Toronto Star

    The Toronto Star is an institution in Toronto, many families get it delivered to their home and you can find it on almost every street corner in a blue vending box. It really caters to all the communities in the larger GTA area and focuses on the people and their situations in those neighbourhoods. (Rather…

  • The Globe and Mail

    The Globe and Mail is one of the most compelling newspapers anywhere. They call themselves Canada’s national newspaper and actually were the first ever newspaper to launch on the internet… yes they beat the New York Times. Always a good read, they have not only sustained but enhanced their brand after moving online.

  • Perform Consulting

    Perform Consulting was a startup consisting of four high level business financial consultants who had just formed a new company. They had plans and needed quick but accurate marketing material. Thirst gave them strong images, bold design and powerful typography to stand out from their competition.

  • MH Media Monitoring

    This client had never used any professional resources outside it’s own firm. They were skeptical about the benefits and thought that the cost to produce anything other than photocopies of Wordperfect files was too expensive. After one look at their fourth and fifth generation photocopies I knew I could help them. I explained the best…

  • Wright Technology Shocks

    Wright Technology, an Australian company, wanted to blast onto the computer imaging scene. They knew that they had superior imaging technology and made no bones about it. They were adamant that their introduction into the North American market place was to be bold and they wanted nothing subtle about it.

  • Canadian Hospitality Foundation

    Sometimes a worthy cause lands in your lap and even better your liason is so friendly that before you even think about the task ahead you already commit yourself to the project.

  • Family Channel

    Family Channel is a wholesome cable station which advertises both to the parents and their children. Thirst performed most of their print advertising work and as a bonus I made a good friend from one of my clients.

  • Sybase Launches in Canada

    Sybase decides to launch their brand into Canada and hired Thirst to create many of their intial prouduct launch materials. At this time they were vying for the number one spot in corporate database development and wanted to expand their user base.