Two peas in a pod: MediaStyle.ca relaunch

We’re very excited to relaunch MediaStyle.ca this morning.

Peapod has watched Ottawa based communications shop, MediaStyle grow from a one-man home office to a four-person boutique communications firm.

MediaStyle isn’t like most public relations firms. Ian Capstick and his team focus on teaching people how to maximize their public relations budgets by teaching clients how to be better communicators. They also take on high-level content strategy and creation.

The re-designed MediaStyle.ca now provides more ways to access the rich archive of two years of near-daily content. The site also provides a much stronger showcase for their portfolio of videos, text and audio content. The new site even has a cute spot for the office to post about their well-known cupcakes.

The team at MediaStyle values handmade goods, they have impeccable style and as Ian told us at the start, “We’re way overdue for a new look.”

Here’s what else Ian has to say about his new site:

“I love how they have infused the site with subtle detailing and really captured what we love about the MediaStyle brand. It’s bold, but bespoke as well.”

We’re looking forward to our teams working together again soon.

HoHoTO from the Spirit Train to the Gravy Train

If you were to think of the one Christmas story that impacted your life, you would probably refer back to Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”. This story would stick out in your mind for various reasons, but what if I asked you to think about the part in the story that truly shaped your idea of Christmas. Would it be the beginning when Ebenezer Scrooge demeans Bob Cratchit or would it be one of the four ghosts (Jacob Marley, Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present, Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) or would it be when Scrooge wakes up Christmas morning with love and joy in his heart and he finally does the right thing?

The site

For all of us here at Peapod Studios it is the Ghost of Christmas Present that sticks out in our minds the most. Scrooge sees how impoverished the Cratchit family is and how Tiny Tim through all his struggles is still full of joy. He sees the Cratchit’s make due with what they have, though their Christmas meal is not nearly enough to feed the whole family properly. This is a scene that doesn’t just happen in the storybooks of our childhoods. This scene is happening daily in homes all around this great country and in every city we reside in.

In real life The Ghost of Christmas Present is actually played by a variety of people and organizations. This year Peapod Studios was asked to design the HoHoTO website and we jumped on the chance to be able to show the real Scrooges of the world just how important this cause is. HoHoTO has been in existence for almost three years now, raising money, awareness and donating food for the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank. The first HoHoTO was organized in less than 20 days and had 600 attendees, it has been dubbed “the party that Twitter built” but in all honesty I think we can realize that its “the party that human compassion and selflessness built.”

HoHoTO has raised more than $80,000 and collected about four tons of food (That is roughly the weight of your average African Elephant or 65 extremely well fed pigs) for the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank. These numbers are pretty astounding but to most people the numbers, the weight none of that is really what they care about. What the average person cares about is “Why do they do it?”. So we asked a few very important HoHoTo members just why they do it.

The responses to the question “Why are you a part of HoHoTO?” were as genuine as they come.

Ryan Taylor

“It’s been 2+ years since I enthusiastically asked that we use the hashtag #hohoto to continue the twitter conversation about an event to feed the needy. I was heading into my studio that night, worried myself about feeding my family.

I feel there are a lot of people we care about here in Toronto quietly suffering, embarrassed by their position who are in or have been very close to poverty.

When you have been one step away from needing a service like the Daily Bread Food Bank, it makes being an organizer that much more satisfying when we hand the giant cheque over at the end of the night.”

Follow Ryan on twitter @ryantaylor

Rob Hyndman

“I’m a part of HoHoTO because there are few other things I can do that will make as much of a difference, for so little effort. HoHoTO is marvellous because with just a bit of effort, we can make an enormous difference in the lives of vulnerable people in our community. I’m involved because it’s our responsibility to make sure that the awesome people at the Daily Bread Food Bank have the tools to do their work. This is our community, these are our neighbours. How can you not help?”

Follow Rob on twitter @rhh

Michael O’Connor Clarke

“HoHoTO represents a really simple equation: you drink, they eat. Considering how absurdly wealthy Toronto is, it’s just plain wrong that so many people in our city don’t have enough to eat. Throwing a big, drunken Holiday party might seem like an odd way to draw attention to this, but it works.”

Follow Michael on twitter @michaelocc

Leila Boujnane

I believe that I can extend a helping hand and make a difference with HoHoTO. Ending hunger in our community starts with a single act of kindness: caring. And year after year, HoHoTO has brought our entire caring community out to lend a hand. You would be insane not to want to be part of such an incredible group!

Follow Leila on twitter @leilaboujnane

HoHoTO is being held December 16th 2010 at The Mod Club (722 College St, Toronto, ON) the tickets go on sale December 1, 2010, but you don’t have to wait till then to get involved. You can click here to access the sponsor page and become one of this years gracious sponsors. There are six levels you can choose from ranging from the Santa level ($10,000.00) to the Candy Cane level ($250.00) or you can start collecting canned goods etc. at your office to donate to the Daily Bread Food Bank.

This event exists because of people like you who take the time to not just think of others but to pass along this message to your entire network be it through Twitter, Facebook, email or even as simple as talking to a stranger on the street. So start following @hohoto or using the #HoHoTO hashtag to spread the word ( or if you are not on Twitter there is a Facebook page ) and Be like the Ghost of Christmas Present to show the Scrooges of the world just what really matters.

Wanted: Office Coordinator

overworked

The Office Coordinator is the glue that holds Peapod together. An important role that includes managing and coordinating day-to-day tasks such as, organizing the studio, manning the phones, coordinating meetings, ordering office supplies, plus additional administrative tasks.

Skills and Abilities

• Ability to build rapport and work effectively with all studio members and clients
• Able to juggle many tasks within a short timeframe, with effective prioritization
• Positive, mature and professional, can-do attitude
• Detail oriented, self-sufficient and organized
• Must work independently with minimal supervision
• Solid written and verbal communication skills
• Proactive thinker who seeks to create efficiencies within the work environment
• Intermediate knowledge of MS Office Suite

Experience

• 1-2 years experience in an office environment
• Reception and customer service experience an asset
• Basic accounting and payroll

Nice to Have

• Project management experience
• Interest in design and interactive services

If you are interested in this position, please send your resume by email to jobs@peapod.ca

Thank you for your response, only those selected for interview will be contacted.

Open Source Fonts.

Free fonts have always been shunned by the design community, and many of the free fonts on the internet are simply poorly crafted ripoffs of actual quality typefaces. They lack differentials in weights, have improper or incomplete unicode, poor hinting and so on.

However some in the typography community are now moving towards the creation of high quality, open source free fonts. This is a sea change in the philosophy we’re used to dealing with from the old school foundries, representing a new age in how we can consume great typefaces.

Today we’ll focus on an open source foundry we just love…

The League of Movable Type

Philosophy: No more bullshit. Join the revolution.

“We’re done with the tired old fontstacks of yesteryear. Enough with the limitations of the web, we won’t have it. It’s time to raise our standards. Here, you’ll find only the most well-made, free & open-source, @font-face ready fonts.”

Quite a statement, and they deliver on that promise. Here’s some of our favourites typefaces from The League of Movable Type.

League Gothic

league gothic

League Gothic is a revival of an old classic, and one of our favorite typefaces, Alternate Gothic No.1. It was originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Type Founders Company (ATF) in 1903. The company went bankrupt in 1993. And since the original typeface was created before 1923, the typeface is in the public domain.

You can grab League Gothic here

Junction

Inspired by my favorite humanist sans serif typefaces, such as Meta, Myriad, and Scala, Junction is where the best qualities of serif and sans serif typefaces come together. It has the hand drawn and human qualities of a serif, and still retains the clarity and efficiencies of a sans serif typeface. It combines the best of both worlds.

You can grab Junction here

Chunk

Chunk is an ultra-bold slab serif typeface that is reminiscent of old American Western woodcuts, broadsides, and newspaper headlines. Used mainly for display, the fat block lettering is unreserved yet refined for contemporary use.

You can grab Chunk here

One of our core philosophies at Peapod Studios is to always strive to work with open source software whenever and wherever we can. Seeing this open ideology move to the realm of typefaces is indeed very exciting.

The League of Movable Type Logo

With our highest recommendation, please check them out.

The League of Moveable Type

Freshbooks Makes Us Look Professional Every Day, So We Decided to Return the Favour.

Freshbooks makes us look professional every day. We’ve been customers since early 2007, and have no reason or inkling to ever move away from their awesome time-tracking and billing services. They save us several hours a week, and days a month. If you want to know how valuable your time is, try doing your invoicing for one month with FreshBooks, we promise you wont ever want to go back to your crusty old system.

So when Michael McDerment called and asked us to add a little spit and polish to his presentation at the Future of Web Apps Conference, we absolutely jumped at the chance.

Mike giving his talk
Photocredit: Alex Designs

Presentation Slide

FreshBooks Believes…

Running a business is hard enough. We believe financial record keeping should be easy, fast, (and perhaps even fun), but still detailed enough to satisfy your accountant.

Billing should be simple. You can send an invoice a few seconds after creating your account no matter what level of experience you have.

Your data deserves to be safe, secure, and accessible to you. We also believe you own your data, we do not. Your data will be easy to export any time you want it.

Every customer should look like a Fortune 500 company, based on the image sent by invoices, bills, or other accounting communications, no matter what size the company is.

Thank You.

So a giant “Thank You” to the FreshBooks Management Team for putting your external face to the world in our hands, if only for a brief moment.

We were happy to return the favour.