Know Canada

It looks like Canada’s birthday present is a makeover! Bruce Mau Design was recently approached to participate in a “Redesigns” series and they’ve decided to tackle the entire country of Canada for an image facelift.

“Canada has an image problem in the US. When Americans think of Canada, stale and often cliché ideas and imagery come to mind. Images like maple syrup, hockey, snow and lots of it. These images don’t pay homage to the intellectual, creative and social contributions that Canada makes as a country on a global scale. These clichés do not accurately depict the 21st Century Canada.

In our redesign, we begin with an assertion that Americans simply don’t understand Canada. Our view is that Canada doesn’t need a redesign; rather, Americans need to be educated.”

I personally have a lot of fun with these silly Canadian stereotypes – I’ve been asked everything from “do you have Halloween in Canada?” to “who is the president of Canada?” – but I’m very interested in this campaign and hope that soon I’ll see a well-designed billboard in Times Square promoting my home country.

Check out Know Canada and view the full Design Presentation/Mission Statement.

Canada Day/America Day

I like that Canada Day and Independence Day are the same weekend, but it often makes for a very busy time. We had promised Nick’s Dad that we’d visit him in Pennsylvania for the 4th, but we also had some visitors, and not just any visitors, but one of my best friends Julia and her sweet fiance Jay! They’re both there if you look closely:

Even though we only had Friday and Saturday with J squared, we managed to show them a pretty great time in Brooklyn. I love it when you don’t see a friend for a while, you don’t even communicate as often as you should, but you still manage to have all the same interests and habits. In this case, Julia and Jay were very excited about our plans to take them to our favourite neighbourhood restaurants and shops, then more than happy to relax with a bottle of champagne on the roof and going to bed just after midnight.

On Saturday, Nick and I took them to our new favourite summer event: Smorgasburg. We ate all sorts of things from anchovies to pupusas to giant ice cream sandwiches to grilled pineapple.

The food was well-documented, mostly through the reflections in Jay’s sunglasses.

My favourite new find had to be the homemade ice cream sandwiches with oatmeal cookies and sea salt!

YUMMMM!

The trip to Pennsylvania was also great – Nick made record time with his driving and I managed to swim three days in a row! Nick Sr. also made us some tasty crabcakes and mac n’ cheese.

How was your long weekend, wherever you were?