Pinwheel Communication Design » 2011 Canada Games

Halifax 2011 Canada Games – Corporate report

Dean Gallant — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:27:44 +0000

Yesterday, the Halifax 2011 Canada Games released the Final Corporate Report for this past winter’s successful event.

This report was a privilege to work on with such a great resource of amazing photography from Games time. It’s a beautiful, colourful, 9.5 x 7.5 inch book peppered with full page photos which are paired with memorable quotes from the event.

I had completed most of this project during my employment with the Games, but had a few details to add this week, along with creating a French version of the layout. For the moment, this has been released online as a .pdf for screen viewing, but we’ll be producing some quality bound copies for the archives and funding partners.

Melissa MacKinnon and Andrea Young did an excellent job pulling together the content. Photos were taken by the volunteer team which was lead by the incredible photographers at Communications Nova Scotia. Copy editing for this project was handled by my old friend Tara Lee Witchen, who I was lucky to work with on quite a few projects for the Games.

See the cover and a few sample interior spreads, below.

Halifax 2011 Canada Games: Final Corporate Report - cover

Halifax 2011 Canada Games: Final Corporate Report - interior spreads

Halifax 2011 Canada Games – Commemorative DVD set

Dean Gallant — Thu, 26 May 2011 16:45:22 +0000

One of the final projects I worked on for the Halifax 2011 Canada Games was to design and produce a three disk commemorative DVD set. This included the various promotional videos and commercial spots produced for the Games, video documentation of events & highlights, photo slideshows from the Games, the National Artist Program Gala performance as well as TSN’s coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies.

The DVD set shares it’s title with the upcoming final corporate report: Compete Contribute Celebrate—the three pillars of the Halifax 2011 Canada Games.

Halifax 2011 Canada Games - Commemorative DVD case

Halifax 2011 Canada Games - Commemorative DVDs

Celebration Square stage

Dean Gallant — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:27:40 +0000

For the two weeks of the Halifax 2011 Canada Games, there was a stage setup in downtown Halifax at Parade Square—dubbed “Celebration Square” for the duration of the Games. I was tasked with design of the surrounding banners. This design featured silhouettes of dancers and fans which mixed with real shadows during the shows to enhance the fun, party atmosphere of the event.

This stage held free performances at noon and at night for ten days with big Canadian artists including: The Joel Plaskett Emergency, Sloan, Hey Rosetta!, Matt Mays, Christina Martin, Hawksley Workman, Great Big Sea, Jeremy Fisher, Old Man Luedecke, Buck 65, Rich Aucoin, Radio Radio, City and Colour, Amelia Curran and more.

I neglected to get a nice photo of the stage while it was up. Trust me, it looked great at night with spotlights! Below is the best record I’ve got of it.

Celebration Square stage design

Halifax 2011 Canada Games – Souvenir program

Dean Gallant — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 17:35:02 +0000

The Souvenir Program for the Halifax 2011 Canada Games was provided to each participant and given out at various venues and events throughout the Games. This is a full glossy, eighty page magazine style publication, fully bilingual throughout.

The program contains general information about Halifax, Nova Scotia and the Canada Games, as well as information on the sports, venues, cultural events, medals, torches, etc… surrounding the Halifax Games. We also included a hard stock insert for holding pins collected. And another fun thing: we took images of real volunteers from our accreditation database and created a mosaic of the Halifax 2011 Canada Games logo.

This was in many ways a true commemorative piece as it really collects and showcases all the various projects and programs we’ve worked so hard on implementing over the last two years. See below for detail images of some of my favourite sections of the program.

Halifax 2011 Canada Games Souvenir Program

Souvenir Program detail

Foldout sport schedule

Dean Gallant — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:58:56 +0000

For the Halifax 2011 Canada Games we produced a detailed sport schedule which was handed out to the general public throughout the two weeks of the Games.

This was a challenge, to reduce what is a very complex schedule—for 22 different sports at 13 separate venues—to a simplified and unified chart. Each sport has it’s own particularities, so maintaining a consistent system and legend is tricky. An overall schedule with this level of detail had not been produced for previous Canada Games and the work for this involved a lot of hours from a lot of staff. It’s definitely something we are proud of.

The schedule is French on the reverse, and folds to a tidy pocket size which you can see in the detail images below.

Halifax 2011 Canada Games foldout sport schedule

Foldout sport schedule detail

Athlete bib designs

Dean Gallant — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:56:17 +0000

Another exciting project for the Halifax 2011 Canada Games was designing the bibs worn by athletes during competiton. There were about twenty variations on this but it was essentially the same design—with modifications on size and style for particular sports.

See a sampling of the design mockups below, and some of my favourite action photos taken during the Games which display the bibs prominently.

Halifax 2011 Canada Games athlete bib designs

Action shots of the athlete bibs for the Halifax 2011 Canada Games

Three pole gantry

Dean Gallant — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:00:57 +0000

I designed a few of these for the Halifax 2011 Canada Games. The particular product is called a three pole gantry. This was located in Parade Square, in front of Halifax’s City Hall. The design features a different athlete image on each of the three sides.

three pole gantry

Brick vinyl application

Dean Gallant — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:41:56 +0000

Among the many interesting projects that I’ve worked on for the Halifax 2011 Canada Games was building or wall applied artwork.

A unique approach to this a high performance vinyl designed for application on rough textured surfaces. These were applied directly to brick walls on either side of one of the entrances to the Halifax Metro Centre. The vinyl is heat set, and moulds itself to the texture of the wall. It’s a striking effect.

Halifax 2011 Canada Games - vinyl on brick application and detail.

Halifax 2011 Canada Games – commemorative gift

Dean Gallant — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:49:00 +0000

The Halifax 2011 Canada Games wanted to produce a unique, custom gift item to present to the Provincial Sport Ministers, and various VIPs for their contribution to the Games.

I designed this in collaboration with local company, Yachtsmith International who fabricated the torch for us. It’s about five inches tall, and sits comfortably on a desk or mantle. As with the torch, I was responsible for concept and technical design, while Yachtsmith took care of the quality fabrication.

There were a little over 100 produced. The wood base is Padauk, and the leaf/wave element is cut from 1/16 inch stainless steel.

Halifax 2011 Canada Games - commemorative gift

Media backdrop

Dean Gallant — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:06:00 +0000

You’ve seen them a million times, but what you might not know is why they always have that same repeating pattern of logos. There is a functional reason: It’s so that no matter what angle you take a photo from, there will always be a full logo visible in the background. Sneaky.

Here is what I designed for the Halifax 2011 Canada Games, for press conferences during Games time.

Halifax 2011 Canada Games Media Backdrop