The following article appeared in the 1999 membership directory of the Advertising & Design Club of Canada:
In the Beginning
By Janet MacKenzie
A few months after the 1948 founding of the Art Directors Club in Toronto, an article in Canadian Art listed problems facing advertising designers in Canada: The small population, meaning fewer important accounts and proportionally fewer clients willing to take chances. Little contact with significant art directors in other countries. Inferior training. Not enough satisfying opportunities to keep the most talented people in Canada. A lack of respect for designers in the business world.
Improving the low status of design (and designers) and gaining clients' trust and respect were challenges for the newly formed club. According to the article, "The problem facing the Art Directors Club will be that of selling good advertising design to advertising buyers." Nobody would know that better than the writer, Clair Stewart, a founding member and the 1998 recipient of the Les Usherwood Award.
The 42 original members also included such noteworthy names as Jack Bush, Leslie Trevor, Walter Yarwood and Eric Aldwinckle. Like art directors clubs worldwide, they began by holding a competition and display to draw attention to their work. The first awards show was an exhibition of advertising and editorial art held at the Eaton's Fine Art Galleries in April 1949.
The entire membership voted to decide which of the 668 entries deserved an honourable mention or an award of distinctive merit. From that second group, the executive members then chose four outstanding pieces to receive the prestigious Art Directors Club medals. These striking medals -- now very rare -- were designed by Charles Comfort, a member of the executive committee already well known for his work as a war artist and for his murals at the former Toronto Stock Exchange, today's Design Exchange.
Bookmaking
The annual, published that September by N. A. MacEachern and Co. in Toronto and printed by Thorn Press, was a hardcover book priced at $4.00. Graphis Press handled European distribution. (A year later, over 100 copies of the second annual were sold in the U.S. and 45 in Italy, with orders from England, Belgium, Sweden, Mexico, the Netherlands, Scotland, France, Egypt and India.)
In his review of that first annual in Canadian Art, Carl Dair (six of whose pieces appeared in the book) concluded that, "As a representative showing, the annual is indispensable for artists, advertising and editorial personnel, and for business men who must be aware of design trends in order to keep their own advertising as up to date as their products. It performs the dual function of setting standards of work and providing a directory... of the people who are doing the top-flight work."
More than 50 years later, we still come together to share our frustrations and to celebrate our successes. A few years ago we updated our name to the more inclusive Advertising & Design Club of Canada, but we've never changed our goals. And, in spite of enormous shifts in society and technology, the biggest challenge for Canadian designers is still convincing clients to trust us.
Show and Tell
In 1999 we saluted our past with a slightly belated 50th-anniversary exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto -- a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to savour the wit, intelligence and artistry of Canada's design and advertising community over half a century. From now on, every gold or silver award-winning piece in our annual competition will become part of the ROM's permanent collection.
By the way, here's Clair Stewart's advice for persuading reluctant clients to buy good design: "Perhaps all ambitious designers should spend a year selling brushes or pots and pans in order to discover the simple rules of everyday selling."