The dye sub advantage

Dye sublimation printing may be a niche business, but it has caught the eye of signmakers looking for ways to expand upon their services with higher-margin product lines—particularly if this move can yield new revenue streams from an existing customer base.

+ Read More

Marquee makeovers

Three landmark venues in Toronto have recently seen their marquee signs made over. In each case, there has been an effort to restore a sense of the building’s history, while also newly branding it for future use. Yet, they represent three very different approaches.

+ Read More

Revitalizing urban streetscapes

As consumers’ spending habits have evolved beyond downtown over the years, to include shopping in suburban malls and buying goods online, many owners of downtown businesses have had to think creatively about how to protect their economic viability.

+ Read More

Fixtures for pop-up stores

‘Pop-up stores’ are temporary outlets that have become increasingly popular over the last decade. Set up for short periods with little or no advance notice, they include a variety of formats, such as vacant retail units, streetside or alley locations, miniature department stores and compact booths set up within existing stores or shopping malls.

+ Read More

Edmonton City Centre’s video walls

A well-known attraction in Alberta’s capital, the Edmonton City Centre (ECC) is an expansive indoor facility that connects local stores, two downtown hotels and more than 557,418 m2 (6 million sf) of office space. As such, it is an attractive hub for out-of-home (OOH) advertising.

+ Read More

Taking the pulse of interactivity

At the 2012 Canadian International AutoShow (CIAS) in downtown Toronto, car manufacturer Nissan tried to get visitors’ hearts racing with a customized interactive digital signage system. Created by the marketing agency Capital C, the installation captured the pulse of the show’s attendees—literally.

+ Read More

Networks in the cloud

When planning a digital signage deployment, today’s system planners are faced with the increasingly difficult decision of whether or not to host the network on-site. With the growing trend of moving data to the ‘cloud,’ the concept of Software as a Service (SaaS) has been gaining traction as a basis for digital signage platforms.

+ Read More

Wrapping a parade float

For Montreal’s 2011 Pride Parade, Toronto-Dominion (TD) Bank Financial Group turned to the Bob communications agency to design its float, combining the bank’s existing corporate branding with the parade’s new ‘3011: Odyssey of the Future’ theme. Groupe BO Concept (GBC), based in Anjou, Que., used a transit poster material to transform this unusual design into reality.

+ Read More

Reviving Maple Leaf Gardens

Toronto’s fabled Maple Leaf Gardens—previously home to major-league hockey, big-name concerts, boxing and other sporting events—recently emerged from a decade of disuse. Its new anchor tenant was not a sports team or event management company, but instead Loblaws, a grocery retail chain with stores across Ontario and Quebec.

+ Read More