About
Photo by Steve Carty
The Short of the Long
Blair joined the team at DIALOG Design in 2024 as the Senior Graphic Designer. Prior to that, he was the Senior Designer at Trajectory Brand Inc. for over seven years after a decade running his own business, BFdesign. His impressive breadth of experience spans identity systems, digital and web applications, publications, marketing programs, interactive presentations and environmental applications for not-for-profits, arts & culture, education and places-based clients.
Select major brand and communication projects include:
- Education: Algoma University, Brock University, Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), Department of Family and Community Medicine (University of Toronto), The Chang School (Toronto Metropolitain University)
- Arts & Culture: Azreili Prize in Music / Azrieli Music, Arts and Culture Centre, CN Tower, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Oakville Symphony, The Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, Toronto Arts Council, Toronto Dance Theatre, Toronto Fringe, The Village at Black Creek
- Not-for-profits: East End Arts, Literacy Unlimited, ProBono Ontario, Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT), Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA), United for Literacy
- Public Sector: Ombudsman Toronto, Toronto Public Library, Stouffville Public Library
- Places: Niagara Benchlands (Lincoln, ON), World Heritage in Canada (Parks Canada)
- Corporate: Analog Devices, Mathers McHenry & Co.
After graduating from the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada, Blair turned his powerful storytelling skills to design. In 2012, he graduated with Distinction from Goldsmiths, University of London with a Masters of Arts (Design: Critical Practice). The program allowed him to explore his love of civic engagement and city-building through the intersection of design. The experience, along with volunteering his time at the Ministry of Stories in London, led him to co-found Department of Imaginary Affairs in Toronto, a not-for-profit focused on civic engagement programs for youth and newcomers.
Along with his full-time work, Blair is a Part-time Professor at George Brown College’s School of Design teaching in both the Brand Design (Honours Bachelor) and Graphic Design (Advanced Diploma) programs. He is also on the Board of Directors of the charitable organization, St. George’s Society Toronto, and a Director of Innovators for Langley Foods Inc.
When he has any spare time, Blair really enjoys baking, much to the delight of his friends and family.
The Long of the Long
For me, it’s all about the narrative.
I’ve never taken the prescribed road to get where I am today. I’d rather take the ‘scenic route’ (as my mother would call it) than the most direct.
My childhood was full of exploration. I could sit for hours pouring over every piece of Lego I owned to find the right piece needed to create the coolest planetary starbase. I took up playing the harp for many years (and can still pluck out a tune now and then). For fun on a summer Saturday afternoon I opened a museum to the public in my parents house by roping off the living room and adding title cards to anything that might look like it belonged in a museum including my father, who was working at the table. At the age of 10 I had started a Macintosh User Group (the Beaches User Group, or BUG for short) in my neighbourhood and hosted monthly sessions on the latest from Apple for about a year. In Grade 7 I won first place in my class science fair thanks to the video game about astronomy I had designed using KidPix and HyperCard on my parents’ Mac Classic II.
My love of theatre got my full attention in high school. While I was never the leading man, I did have the opportunity to try eveything from lighting to designing the posters for the school plays. For my Independent Study Unit project, I not only produced the annual arts festival, Cabaret Voltaire, but also wrote and directed my first play, Dear God. After one of the performances, a fellow student came up to me to thank me for writing the play as she was going through similar issues the protagonist was facing and found it to be very cathartic. Knowing that something I had created affected this person in such a profound way was the impetus I needed to keep going. Shortly after, I became the youngest produced playwright at the age of 17 in the Rhubarb! Festival at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, the largest queer theatre in North America, with another play titled Untitled. A few years after that I was accepted into the prestigious National Theatre School of Canada’s playwriting program (one of two students annually) where I honed my storytelling craft.
As the Director of Communications and Membership for the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA), I began to seriously think about the intersection of design, the arts and technology.
I am incredibly passionate about bringing technology and design to the arts here in Toronto. In 2015, this passion eventually led to the development of an app (TOnight) providing the user with access to information on all the performances happening in Toronto.
In December 2007, I was ready for the next challenge. With no formal training in either design or business, I took a leap of faith and established BFdesign Inc. As nervous as I was about going out on my own, I have never looked back. Nine years later, I had established myself as one of the go-to designers for the cultural sector in Toronto designing everything from presentations for award ceremonies to the 2025 EXPO bid document for Toronto city council. It turned out to be the perfect blend of my love of narrative and design. Branding and playwriting are not as dissimilar as one would think. I am constantly developing, strategizing, questioning and uncovering the narratives of each of my clients in order to best represent their needs in a visual way. It’s not always easy but that’s why I love what I do.
Just as things were clipping along at a good pace work wise, I decided I needed another adventure and found myself taking up residence in London, England. I gave myself five months to live abroad with the aim of seeing the world from a different perspective. By the end of that time there I wasn’t ready to leave as I felt that I was only scratching the surface of this new life. Thankfully, I was introduced to Goldsmiths at the University of London. I applied and was accepted to the Design: Critical Practice Masters program.
The course was nothing short of life-changing. We explored what the word design means, how the world we live in is designed, how we interact with the space that has been designed for us, and ways we can circumvent and change that space for the better. We talked about the need to redesign education and the best way to design a farmers market on campus. It allowed me to explore my love of transit, civic-engagement, and city-building through the development of two projects in particular using technology and narrative as the central themes. This exploration culminated in my thesis project, Public Transit: Remixed, a look at designing transit systems from an experiential, as opposed to infrastructure, standpoint.
While in London, I volunteered as a mentor at the Ministry of Stories, a not-for-profit devoted to providing a space for at-risk youth to be creative, with a focus on writing. Returning to Toronto, I was completely energized by my experiences at Goldsmiths, the Ministry of Stories, and living in the UK for two years. I wanted to make a difference in my city. In 2015, a friend and I launched a new community-driven, critical thinking design space known as Department of Imaginary Affairs.
DIA made its public debut that year with an independent installation at Nuit Blanche titled The East Side Story Project. The installation was a six-foot by ten-foot book containing 144 curated stories by residents living in the East side of the city. We wanted to capture the narrative of the people who lived in an area which was on the brink of gentrification and development. It was a great success and chosen as one of the top five installations to see by CityNews. A year later, we launched a new project called The Stories of Us, a library of stories written by and for newcomers about their journey and experiences in Canada in both their home language and translated into English, side-by-side. We received three years of funding from the federal government to explore and develop this project and to date, we have over 100 stories in 19 languages and a brand new curriculum designed for ESL teachers to use in their classrooms based on the workshop materials we developed.
Since 2021, I have had the pleasure of teaching as a Part-time Professor at George Brown College’s School of Design. I thoroughly enjoy teaching the up and coming designers what I have learnt over the years as a designer and I love hearing about their process and thinking behind the designs they present. Though I don’t have an academic background in design, I feel that I bring a different perspective to the design process that students don’t always consider: the story behind the design. The combination of my training at Goldsmiths and my background in storytelling has allowed me to think about design, not just as a way of communicating an idea or promoting a product, but also as a way of changing the world (whatever world that may be).
My little corner of the internet here provides a snapshot of the work I have developed over the years. While this barely scratches the surface of the work I have been involved in, it represents the best of who I am as a designer.
Land Acknowledgement
I acknowledge that I am a white settler who operates on the land known as Toronto, originally called Tkaronto, “Where the Trees Meet the Water,” “The Gathering Place.” This is sacred land that has been the site of human activity for over 15,000 years. It is the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of New Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, and the Huron Wendat. I honour and respect these Nations (and any other recorded or unrecorded Nations who cared for the land) as the past, present and future caretakers of this land.
Today, the meeting place of Toronto is home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to live and work in the community, on this territory.
I encourage all people to become more actively involved in understanding why Land Acknowledgements are important, but also Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in the places where they live and work.
In Canada, the University of Alberta offers a free online course that “explores key issues facing Indigenous peoples today from a historical and critical perspective highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations.”