Continuing on with festival season, the 2023 Vancouver Writers Fest program guide just launched, outlining all the exciting events going on this year. For the campaign design this year we had the pleasure of working alongside the very talented Rafael Mayani for a suite of illustrations. These illustrations showcase Granville Island through the eyes of the Writers Fest, bringing a sense of wonder and excitement to the fest.

Tickets go on sale September 11th, and expect to see more of the illustrations as they rollout across the city.

Read more about the fest on their 2023 Festival website!

Festival season is creeping up quickly and we’re extremely stoked on our work for the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) for the 2023 season! It’s always an interesting challenge to keep pushing the boundaries of the VIFF brand, but one that’s extremely rewarding. The design, direction, and concept were done by us here at ZAK, with the motion being done by the fine folks over at Post Pro Media. Keep your eyes peeled for the campaign as it rolls out everywhere! For the most up to date festival news, be sure to visit the VIFF website.

KOKOMO is one of our favourite clients, and we’ve had the pleasure to work with them on a number of things over the years. Branding, packaging design, website design, store hoarding – you name it, we’ve done it. They’re such a iconic business here in Vancouver, offering fresh plant-based meals for pickup and delivery. Everything from vegan burgers to bowls and shakes, they’re a staple for many people.

They just recently shutdown their Chinatown location, in lieu of opening a brand new location over in East Van. In our eyes, the new location feels like it makes so much sense, and will allow the people over on Commercial to see what they’ve been missing out on.

Make sure you drop by if you’re in the area – 3435 Commercial St, Vancouver, BC V5N 4E8.

In today’s ever changing world, a brand’s unique identity is essential, and one way to achieve this is through illustration. By conveying messages and personality without words, it’s a valuable tool that we, as a creative agency in Vancouver, like to incorporate into our work. As we keep a close eye on the creative talent in the city, we’re thrilled to see the growing community of talented illustrators. From realistic and painterly styles to whimsical and intriguing designs, we’re excited to showcase 5 of our favourite illustrators in Vancouver.

Genice Chan

Genice Chan is an illustrator whose work exudes a cartoony, anime influenced vibe. She’s worked on some amazing projects, ranging from Twitch videos for Pokimane at Giant Ant to the 2021 Vancouver Writers fest with us!

Her use of colour is always so good, and her strong visual development skills are evident in her strong compositions and use of space within her work.

Website / Instagram

Rafael Mayani

Rafael Mayani is an amazing illustrator, as well as associate creative director at Giant Ant, one of the premiere animation houses out there.

Rafael’s style is characterized by vibrant colors, bold lines, and a strong sense of movement and dynamism. His work often features a strong use of perspective, stylized human forms, and scale which is iconic to his style. He has a keen eye for detail and a unique ability to convey emotion and personality through all the work he does.

Website / Instagram

Hanna Lee Joshi

Hanna Lee Joshi is a Korean-Canadian artist from Vancouver, who we’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with for the 2021 Vancouver Writers Fest campaign. 

Her work features the use of organic, flowing shapes and gradients which results in a beautiful, whimsical feeling. The female form is usually present within her work, which often explores themes of identity and individuality. Hanna Lee Joshi is one of our absolute favourites in the city, and we’re sure you can see why.

Website / Instagram

Benjamin T. Stone

Benjamin T. Stone is a designer and illustrator based in Vancouver, who collaborated with us on the 2022 Vancouver Writers Fest campaign.

His illustrations are highly editorial, using more muted, natural tones and often depicting humans in emotive ways. His range is spectacular, and the ability to tell a full story through smaller nuances in his work is something we really admire.

Website / Instagram

Spencer Pidgeon

Spencer Pidgeon is a designer and illustrator who’s work bleeds personality and character. Colourful and with a hand-drawn feeling, Spencer’s work communicates through humour and play.

The fact that he’s also a designer is evident in the way he presents his illustrations, as well as the way he integrates illustration into his work. One to watch for sure, we’d love to work with Spencer one of these days.

Website / Instagram

Arvin Paelmo

Ok ok, this one is a bit of a gimme but real recognizes real. Arvin, one of the co-founders here at ZAK and operating art director is an extremely talented illustrator. He can cover a range of styles, has an inherently artistic eye, and drives a lot of the illustrated work we do here.

Instagram

We’re very excited to share some of the brand identity work we’ve been doing at ZAK with the lovely folks over at DeeBee’s Organics over the last few months!

Led by Michelle Leggatt, we worked closely with the internal team at DeeBee’s to understand who they are, and how their brand needs to serve them for the future.

The design strategy came down to the core idea of ‘celebrating a colorful world’ – encapsulating everything from treats made with real fruit, diversity, and the magic of treats.

With that in mind, we overhauled their brand across visual identity, illustrations, packaging, and everything in between. Grateful to the whole team at DeeBee’s for their constant collaboration and joy throughout the process!

You can dig in to find more about the project via our case study.

This is a bit of a funny one, and it’s VERY niche but we were posted on Hubspot’s blog about their favourite green websites. As you probably know, we leaned into the green for our brand launch so we’re happy some people are taking notice!

You can get your daily dose of green by reading the article here.

We’ve been featured on Pentawards blog for our work with Nora’s Non-Dairy! Pentawards is an annual packaging design competition and hub, specifically for packaging designers. Nice to see they caught onto the great work we’ve done for Nora’s. congratulatory? Sure, but we know how good it is.

Read their post here!

Happy Friday! It’s always nice to wake up and see our work getting a little love, this time over on the Dieline. Our work for Nora’s Plant Based Ice Cream has previously been featured on the Dieline, so it’s cool to see it up there again.

We recently worked with Nora’s to update their packaging design from what we had done in 2018. A few regulatory things had changed, as well as the desire for the actual ice cream to be shown on the tub. All in all, it was nice to rework the packaging design to be even more scalable than what previously existed.

Check out the post here!

It’s always exciting to wake up and have friends reaching out that they’ve seen your work somewhere in the wild. With the launch of our new website design, it seems we were picked up by the essential Chrome plugin Muzli, by Invision as well as Japanese website design inspiration site 1guu.

Let us know if you spot us anywhere else!

With the launch of our new website, we were super excited to get out there and submit to some of our favourite inspiration resources. Awwwards is one of the most well known, and we were honoured to be accepted as a nominee. The votes are looking good and fingers are crossed we can get featured as a potential site of the day!

If you haven’t had a chance to vote, we’d appreciate any love thrown our way. You can check out the website featured on awwwards here.