Using computers to figure out the predominant colours from landmarks and landscapes from each Canadian capital city, I built individual palettes to create a kind of chromatic identity for each city. There’s an intrinsic simplicity to this whole project, there’s something very Canadian about it. No huge fanfare and glossy pictures of monuments and other stereotypical urban signifiers (“oh, look, the CN Tower, they must be talking about Toronto…”), the colours and the entities they represent are all subtle and true. More so it’s that these are the shades of the things that make up a place but don’t necessarily overwhelm it. These are the hues of things seen and known but not always looked at or thought about…sometimes hockey and football, sometimes water and rock, these colours represent natural pulls to the land where these cities lie, to the cultures fostered there, and each one is chosen not for it’s glitz but for it’s purity of presence. These are real things. Solid things. It doesn’t get much more elementally beautiful than that.
 
Each palette has been personalized out of a genuine reality and not out of an urge to impress. Being a Torontonian, I can’t think of any colour more omnipresent than the slightly annoying sanguine red of the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission). Pretty? Not necessarily. Affection-inducing? Most people’s opinion of the TTC lies somewhere between detestation and apathy. But it’s presence is undeniable and a visual colour-thread for anyone that lives here – and capturing that reality is. Email us to set up your free poster.