source | The CANADIAN DESIGN RESOURCE » Expo 67

When I see old design like the Expo 67 posters I wonder if Canadian design will ever hit such heights again. I love trolling through Canadian Design Resource and looking at work from designers of old. I can understand why many old school designers left the field: Canadian design is tough for all the wrong reasons. When I worked in London (UK), opportunities were a bit more flexible. It was easier to at least get a chance and it didnt come with the horse trading that is far too common in today’s design environment in Canada.

Why make it so hard? Why do we work so hard to defeat each other? It usually results in mediocrity and blandness and to be honest we all suffer. With so many elements of Canadian culture under attack from deregulation and Americanization, why shoot each other first.

A common adage in the web design world is that after the dotcom crash only the “most talented” remained. That is such a misnomer, the best didn’t remain, just the ones that were the most ruthless. I worked in a major dotcom and I saw the most talented give up and get retrained. Now most of them are so far out of the media world that it is sad that we will never see ideas like the ones that were produced 1998-2000. Well that’s why we have archives like this, to be inspired and to try to achieve more. Now if only such an ethos could be put forward to ending this entire Web 2.0 rounded corner/gradient/reflection belief that is so 2006.