The Portfolio of Casey Irvin.

ProjectBusiness Cards
OrganizationPersonal
I designed these business cards for myself in Adobe Illustrator. The colour pallet is extended through to the design of this website.
The front side proudly states that “it was such a pleasure to meet you,” while the back provides the straight details about me. This juxtaposition is intended to give a sense of the friendly and professional manner in which I conduct myself. I have intentionally left some of the details off of the back in any explicit way. However, both my website address and twitter handle are within my email address. This allows me to annotate the card by hand when it is relevant and therefore, each business card is personalized for the individual I am giving it to. On the flip side, it probably was a pleasure to meet you.

Project
Business Cards

Organization
Personal

I designed these business cards for myself in Adobe Illustrator. The colour pallet is extended through to the design of this website.

The front side proudly states that “it was such a pleasure to meet you,” while the back provides the straight details about me. This juxtaposition is intended to give a sense of the friendly and professional manner in which I conduct myself. I have intentionally left some of the details off of the back in any explicit way. However, both my website address and twitter handle are within my email address. This allows me to annotate the card by hand when it is relevant and therefore, each business card is personalized for the individual I am giving it to. On the flip side, it probably was a pleasure to meet you.

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ProjectLiberal Arts Sans Typeface
OrganizationFor Retail (soon)
I designed this humanist sans serif typeface to be useful, but with good personality. Take for instance the capital A’s slanted crossbar, it’s quirky. Liberal Arts Sans consists of fifteen typefaces, with weights from thin to black and widths from condensed to expanded. The expanded widths and heavier weights are especially good for headline and display sizes, while the lighter weights can be used to give body texts a unique appearance. More so, the relatively wide (and growing) language support make Liberal Arts Sans a globe-trotting good time.

Project
Liberal Arts Sans Typeface

Organization
For Retail (soon)

I designed this humanist sans serif typeface to be useful, but with good personality. Take for instance the capital A’s slanted crossbar, it’s quirky. Liberal Arts Sans consists of fifteen typefaces, with weights from thin to black and widths from condensed to expanded. The expanded widths and heavier weights are especially good for headline and display sizes, while the lighter weights can be used to give body texts a unique appearance. More so, the relatively wide (and growing) language support make Liberal Arts Sans a globe-trotting good time.

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“A fulltime program running 10 months a year over four years, like traditional high schools, is often not a good match...”

Article
Choices: Adult Credit High School, GED and ACE

Organization
Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy

While working with the Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy, I helped oversee the launch of a new DRUPAL-based website. After the launch, I researched and wrote articles for a blog and managed the backend of the site. The article linked to here is a sample blog post of mine.

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"Hard at work, RoFo tried to just pop in on his Edmontonian counterpart, but Ford had neglected to call ahead or actually make sure that Mayor Stephen Mandel was in the city."

Article
Newsstand: August 17, 2012

Organization
Torontoist

As a contributing writer for the website Torontoist, I provide a morning news digest two times each week of stories that I think will be interesting and engaging to our thousands of readers. Torontoist averages over 26,000 page visits each day and these “Newsstand” posts are reliable, informative, and entertaining content that help draw people back to the website every day. I write these posts with a casual and often humourous style that fits the tone of the website. Plus, writing to an 8:00 A.M. publication deadline is actually pretty exciting.

Please visit this link to see a collection of all my posts for Torontoist.

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Project Captioning Prosody: Experience as a Basis for Typographic Representations of How Things are Said
Organization Masters Thesis in Communication and Culture
Over a year of researching, designing, writing, and redesigning, I looked for a way to show prosody (how something is said) in typography. Beginning from the Open Sans typeface by Steven Matteson, I developed seven new versions to show different ways of speaking. The iterative design process that I employed in this research included three focus groups with deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing users of captioning. After each focus group, I used the feedback and comments of the participants to help refine my designs.
In the end, I found that handwriting is a useful starting point for showing prosody in typography. For instance, just as my voice starts to tremble when I am nervous and speaking, so too does my hand tremble when I am nervous and writing.
FilesComplete written thesis in pdf formatFonts in otf format
Supervisory Committee Jan Hadlaw (Supervisor)— York University Department of Design Stéphanie Walsh Matthews — Ryerson University Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures Richard Hunt — OCAD University Faculty of Design

Project
Captioning Prosody: Experience as a Basis for Typographic Representations of How Things are Said

Organization
Masters Thesis in Communication and Culture

Over a year of researching, designing, writing, and redesigning, I looked for a way to show prosody (how something is said) in typography. Beginning from the Open Sans typeface by Steven Matteson, I developed seven new versions to show different ways of speaking. The iterative design process that I employed in this research included three focus groups with deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing users of captioning. After each focus group, I used the feedback and comments of the participants to help refine my designs.

In the end, I found that handwriting is a useful starting point for showing prosody in typography. For instance, just as my voice starts to tremble when I am nervous and speaking, so too does my hand tremble when I am nervous and writing.

Files
Complete written thesis in pdf format
Fonts in otf format

Supervisory Committee
Jan Hadlaw (Supervisor)— York University Department of Design
Stéphanie Walsh Matthews — Ryerson University Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
Richard Hunt — OCAD University Faculty of Design

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ProjectSound Projector installation and software
OrganizationPersonal & Artistic
This project explores the connections between sound and image in a rather tongue-in-cheek way. The installation involves two components: a piece of software and an old slide projector. I wrote the software in the Processing and Supercollider languages—both of which I taught myself for the sake of this work. I stitched these together to control musical synthesizers based on the red, green, and blue colour values of the pixels in an image while generating visualizations based on the image (see attached animation). The visuals were projected onto a screen and accompanied by an old slide projector that I rewired to work as a speaker for the synthesizers to be listened to through.

Project
Sound Projector installation and software

Organization
Personal & Artistic

This project explores the connections between sound and image in a rather tongue-in-cheek way. The installation involves two components: a piece of software and an old slide projector. I wrote the software in the Processing and Supercollider languages—both of which I taught myself for the sake of this work. I stitched these together to control musical synthesizers based on the red, green, and blue colour values of the pixels in an image while generating visualizations based on the image (see attached animation). The visuals were projected onto a screen and accompanied by an old slide projector that I rewired to work as a speaker for the synthesizers to be listened to through.

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ProjectBusiness Cards
OrganizationErin Charter, Writer
When freelance writer Erin Charter approached me to help design her new business cards, she already had a pretty strong vision for what she wanted. We sat down and she asked me to design her cards from actual postcards passed down through her family. The idea of writing to someone you consider important is key to how a freelance writer should see their clients and their audiences. Her postcard theme fit that perfectly.
The script typefaces used for her contact information and skills are integral to the card’s theme, but to maintain the feeling of times passed and a certain type of formal elegance (like when people used to get dressed up to fly) I also created a bespoke typographic treatment for her send-off: “Thinking of you.”

Project
Business Cards

Organization
Erin Charter, Writer

When freelance writer Erin Charter approached me to help design her new business cards, she already had a pretty strong vision for what she wanted. We sat down and she asked me to design her cards from actual postcards passed down through her family. The idea of writing to someone you consider important is key to how a freelance writer should see their clients and their audiences. Her postcard theme fit that perfectly.

The script typefaces used for her contact information and skills are integral to the card’s theme, but to maintain the feeling of times passed and a certain type of formal elegance (like when people used to get dressed up to fly) I also created a bespoke typographic treatment for her send-off: “Thinking of you.”

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ProjectDigital Signage and Posters
OrganizationUniversity of Waterloo, Food Services
While working as the Communications Designer for the University of Waterloo’s Food Services, I designed posters and content for the digital signs used by thousands of students, staff, and faculty each day to know what activities the school’s restaurants, cafeterias, and an on-campus farmer’s market had going on.
The digital signs I was creating content for ran on a piece of computer software called InfoCaster that I also had a hand in helping create while working as a Quality Assurance Tester with Inscriber Technology (now part of Harris Corporation). My unique combination of skills with Adobe Creative Suite and this specialized content management/digital signage software allowed me to greatly improve the quality of material Food Services used and helped make campus a better looking place.

Project
Digital Signage and Posters

Organization
University of Waterloo, Food Services

While working as the Communications Designer for the University of Waterloo’s Food Services, I designed posters and content for the digital signs used by thousands of students, staff, and faculty each day to know what activities the school’s restaurants, cafeterias, and an on-campus farmer’s market had going on.

The digital signs I was creating content for ran on a piece of computer software called InfoCaster that I also had a hand in helping create while working as a Quality Assurance Tester with Inscriber Technology (now part of Harris Corporation). My unique combination of skills with Adobe Creative Suite and this specialized content management/digital signage software allowed me to greatly improve the quality of material Food Services used and helped make campus a better looking place.

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ProjectMap to Adult Literacy Programs in York Region
OrganizationThe Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy
Ontario’s York region has over a million residents spanning its more than 1,700 km²—so, the few adult literacy programs there are spread-out and each serve a fairly large geographic region. To help social service providers get an understanding of where the adult literacy options are located for their clients, I created this map and directory, which fits onto a single sheet of paper. Created in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, I used two resolutions of maps to, at one level, address the large, regional concern of which cities have adult literacy programs, and then in a set of secondary maps, also to provide a close-up look at the specific intersections these services are located at.

Project
Map to Adult Literacy Programs in York Region

Organization
The Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy

Ontario’s York region has over a million residents spanning its more than 1,700 km²—so, the few adult literacy programs there are spread-out and each serve a fairly large geographic region. To help social service providers get an understanding of where the adult literacy options are located for their clients, I created this map and directory, which fits onto a single sheet of paper. Created in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, I used two resolutions of maps to, at one level, address the large, regional concern of which cities have adult literacy programs, and then in a set of secondary maps, also to provide a close-up look at the specific intersections these services are located at.

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