News
27 July 2010
Concrete helps its 'hood
TORONTO—Concrete Design Communications recently designed a "Shop Roncy" poster campaign for Toronto's Roncesvalles neighbourhood, which it has called home for 15 years.
The pro bono job was assigned by community group Roncesvalles Renewed to get people to shop in the neighbourhood, which has seen hard times due to massive street construction. “When they approached us they gave us a small brief on what they wanted to achieve,” says Concrete designer Edmond Ng. “That was basically to get people back and spending money in Roncesvalles.”
Knockout was used as the font in the poster because its variety of weights allowed for play within the font family. This is set against a beige background with red and blue to let the form speak for itself, says Ng. “We were looking to create an honest voice for what the shop owners were feeling,” he says. “We were hoping to make people chuckle at the copy. I think it's working; the owners say they have run out of posters.” Contact: Concrete.ca
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The "Shop Roncy" campaign has been a hit according to shop keepers
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The pro bono job was assigned by community group Roncesvalles Renewed to get people to shop in the neighbourhood, which has seen hard times due to massive street construction. “When they approached us they gave us a small brief on what they wanted to achieve,” says Concrete designer Edmond Ng. “That was basically to get people back and spending money in Roncesvalles.”
Knockout was used as the font in the poster because its variety of weights allowed for play within the font family. This is set against a beige background with red and blue to let the form speak for itself, says Ng. “We were looking to create an honest voice for what the shop owners were feeling,” he says. “We were hoping to make people chuckle at the copy. I think it's working; the owners say they have run out of posters.” Contact: Concrete.ca
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good that they are helping out, but as a poster it is way too layered to get the point across on the street ...it looks like a packed sandwich of information ...less typestyling would have made it stronger
it is also naive to expect locals to shop more just because you put up a poster
cool?
hmm, sounds like concrete got all their hip neighbours to talk this up. i agree with the earlier comments...
great effort but this is not a great piece of design work or communication. i also think people won't shop in a construction zone just because concrete did a poster with some type on it.
let's move on... there is a lot more interesting and important cause work being done in our city than this!
go see them for yourself... before you make inflated comments about how wonderful this work is (not everything Concrete does is award winning)... if someone else did this, it would not even get a mention... it's that bland
i say this because there are so many much more effective posters (done by unknown designers) on the streets of TO that could be mentioned on this forum
It's here to bring even more attention to a worthy cause. Period. And for all of you "designers" who made there way down to Roncy for the sole purpose of bashing this poster, and bought a coffee or paczki while you were there… mission accomplished.
i also wonder if it is such a worthy cause... asking people to shop??? as i pointed out there are many other unknown firms out there that are doing much more effective posters, so i have no idea why this piece is even mentioned
(Way to go Concrete!)
In a sense, you are also being very critical of others who happen to believe this poster is ineffective.
Again, this is a forum to discuss all sides and they have a right to critique it -- as I am sure you have done with design pieces you don't like.
It would be pretty boring if everyone just said "Way to go Concrete" -- just because the job was probono.