Today I spent the day walking around downtown, visiting all the various studio's.
It all started at OCAD. I finally met Tim. Not personally of course, but he made his speach about why he started the fall tour and how every year the turn out has doubled. Doubled! I can see why. Everyone was seperated into 6 groups, I was assigned to Group B, who, little to my knowledge, my friend Erin was one of our guides!
The first stop we went to was a small studio called Teehan + Lax. It was a small studio, with about 25-30 people employed. Dispite it's size, they have been working with some really big companies like Blackberry, Airmile, and Telus. I was shown a advertisement one of the employee's created for the blackberry line, and it was amazing. The studio was a open based studio. What I mean is, there wasn't a bunch of cubicles, seperate floors or anything. It was all one floor, and everyone was in the same room. I loved this concept because it was so open, and it seems so much easier for everyone to interact with each other. Also, Teehan + Lax's creative team deals with clients personally. Clients don't have to go through an elaberate process just to talk to the person creating whatever he was hired to do. I thought this concept was really smart. Now, the client can hear, first hand, why certain things were chosen, how the client likes it, and there one on one, personal interaction. I left Teehan + Lax very content.
The next place on my stop was Organic. Organic is a much bigger company than Teehan + Lax, and you could tell right away. Organic is in a 3 floor building. 1st floor is the creative team, second floor is the office team, the bottom floor is the technical/flash team. My group was ushered into a conference room where we watched a presentation on exactly what Organic is and does. Organic has also worked with a lot of major companies, a lot more than Teehan + Lax, and a lot more than I can name. The ones that stuck out the most to me was RBC, Nike, and Jeep. They had some pretty good looking stuff. They did a really neat Jeep advertisment where you could control a jeep on a map with your mouse, which I thought was pretty cool and entertaining. Also, you could customize your jeep on a web site created by Organic of course. Organic has done some really awesome things and the building is clean and professional. I didn't like the fact that it wasn't as open as Teehan + Lax. I think Organic is too big a company for me to work at. I mean, I can see it as something to get me started, but it's not someplace I could see myself at for a long period of time.
After Organic is was back to OCAD to eat, and watch a bunch of presentations from other studios. First one was Secret Location. Secret location has done some interesting things. They created Elbow Hitter, a interactive game where two people sit beside each other and hit each other. But the thing that really stuck out for me was the touch table. For the life of me I can't remember exactly what it's called but basically it was a table, where when you touch the top, wherever you touched, would light up with mult colors and such. It was fascinating. Thats what they showed us on a video, but there are other functions. Like, in the newest James Bond Movie where they had all the information and debriefing crap in the table, and they could move it around and stuff, of like in Iron Man, His work table... Yea. Even if you dont understand what Im talking about, trust me, its really awesome.
The second presenter was MacLarens. This was one of my favorite. MacLarens is a huge company, whith multiple studios in Amaerica, and only one in Canada. Dispite how big it is, they have been working on huge projects. One in peticular caught my interest. Recently the newest Halo was released, Halo 3: ODST. Microsoft asked MacLarens creat a website for the launch of the game. MacLarens also did a huge launch campain in Toronto. As much as I would love to explain, it would take forever. Take my word thoough, it was fantastic.
After MacLarens presentation me and my friend went out to get a drink, and then one thing led to another and lets just say... it took us a long time to get back. When we did we missed the last presentation and my group left to the next studio. So, My friend and I went out and explored downtown. It was my first real experience in downtown Toronto without following teachers and having a strict time scedule like in High School. It was good times, I enjoyed the diverse stores and people.
Overall, my experience was great. It gave me a real sense of when I'm going to be up against when I start working. I'm excited for the future.
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