Steven and Jane Cox, co-founders of design firm Cause + Affect, describe their company’s mission as “helping people define their culture... and then we help them communicate that culture.”

Credit: Doug Shanks

NEWS: Designs on the future

While many of us are still reeling from the effects of a global economic crisis that has wiped out tens of thousands of jobs across the country in only a few months, an unlikely industry continues to thrive in the midst of what is, for many, truly the worst of times. A talented legion of Vancouver designers and tastemakers is proving that innovation endures in periods of flux, and may in fact grow despite — or perhaps because of — the chaos around it.

As countless other local companies struggle to remain relevant in increasingly competitive economic and cultural environments, design firms such as Cause + Affect are busier than they’ve ever been. Principals Jane and Steven Cox are the couple behind the company, which is best known for revitalizing the Vancouver Art Gallery’s youth credibility by introducing the popular Fuse party nights, bringing the international design forum Pecha Kucha Night to the city, and handling the graphic and exhibition design for the Vancouverism architecture exhibit that toured Paris and London. More recently, Cause + Affect has been hired by the Vancouver Economic Development Commission to look at new methods of cross-sector collaboration, communication, and design. “We’re now talking about crossing with the food industry, green technology, and other strong, emerging sectors,” says Jane. “We’re trying to instigate an alignment across these sectors to get together and really think: What do we want our city to be? How do we want to define this city? That’s been really exciting.”

As for the unexpected surge in business that Cause + Affect has experienced over the past six months, Jane chalks it up to a widespread desire for change. “In a recession, you might think about who you are and how you do things,” she says.

“Everybody delves deep, and they want to find a meaning in what they do; they want to re-evaluate if what they’re doing makes any sense,” adds Steven. “We kind of think about our job as helping people define their culture, [helping] companies define their culture, and then we help them communicate that culture, or we help them allow people to interact with that culture.”

And the couple’s mission has been successful: Among other accomplishments, Pecha Kucha, in which attendees present a creative six-minute lecture on a topic of their choice, has drawn such a consistently large audience that Steven and Jane are having trouble finding a suitable venue in which to host it.

“When we came back to Vancouver in 2004 [after working internationally]... there was a group of people in Vancouver who said, Vancouver sucks, nothing ever happens here, nobody does anything interesting, blah blah blah. That really wasn’t us,” Steven recalls. The frustration surrounding Vancouver’s no-fun reputation spurred the genesis of some of Cause + Affect’s first projects, which were received with great success. “We realized that Vancouver’s a city that won’t hand you things on a silver platter, won’t hand you opportunities. But if you make opportunities for yourself, it will reward you in its response to your efforts,” Steven says. “There’s a kind of self-awareness that’s finally happening, where people are coming up with their own ideas of what the city is, rather than falling back on the tourist-led identity that the city has always been.”

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Similar to Steven and Jane’s desire to re-imagine Vancouver outside of its mountains-and-forest traditions, Cynthia Penner and Jay Brooks, principals of Box Interiors, decided to start a design firm here with the intention of exploring and contributing to what they saw as the charm of the city’s diversity. “We’re not outdoorsy people by any stretch of the imagination,” laughs Penner. “Some of our Toronto friends are like, ‘Why are you living in Vancouver if you’re not outdoorsy people?’ Well, there are a lot of other reasons: There is a great food culture here; there is a great multicultural environment here; it’s a great pace.”

Since Box’s inception in 2002, Penner and Brooks have taken on interior-design projects ranging from a renovation of the Vancouver Art Gallery Cafe (“Nothing changed except for décor, and [their] business grew 50 per cent,” says Penner) to the look of the Market by Jean-Georges restaurant in the new Shangri-La Hotel. Penner and Brook are also the designers behind Trattoria Italian Kitchen.

“When we first moved here [from Toronto in 1996], we were pretty frustrated that a lot of the clients we were meeting were really cautious and conservative,” recalls Penner. “But, slowly and surely, we’re finding people who are willing to be mavericks and willing to be leaders in design and not wait until their competition does it first, which is great. I think there’s also an overwhelming movement in general, in Vancouverites, toward having an eye for design.... I hope we’re doing our part to give places that they can connect to emotionally.”

And as people live in smaller and smaller spaces, Penner says, “There’s a lot more need to go out — out for entertainment, out for just freedom of space.”

“Going out is about connectivity and entertainment and hospitality,” adds Brooks. “If [our] clients are busy and their businesses are doing well, we’ve done our jobs.”

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While some of the most obvious examples of local design lie in the decadence of Vancouver’s high-end restaurants, it’s also important to note that good design doesn’t always need to be expensive. That’s what Isabelle Swiderski aims to do with Seven25, a design firm she founded in 2006.

“We want to show small to medium business owners [and] not-for-profits where the possibilities for design are,” says Swiderski. “You don’t need to have tons of money to do engaging design... It’s certainly more accessible than people might think.”

Swiderski’s team at Seven25 has been responsible for the recent Bike to Work Week campaign and the forthcoming Home for the Games, a home-stay project which will take place during the 2010 Olympics. “The goal of [Home for the Games] is to put homeowners in touch with people who want to visit Vancouver... The homeowners agree to donate 50 per cent of the proceeds that they make from renting one of the rooms to fight homelessness in Vancouver,” Swiderski explains. “I specifically feel that design is meant to improve our lives, and that part of being a good designer is putting your skills to the service of organizations whose voices need to be heard, and whose missions are people-driven rather than profits. That’s definitely something we try to focus on, and, as a result, I think we work with really important and interesting people and organizations.”

And the best strategy for combatting what is sometimes a prohibitive conservatism among Vancouverites? Keep raising the bar, Swiderski says. “We have to be careful to not always seek the lowest common denominator,” she says. “If you can convey the right message in the right language, you touch people. That’s really what we aim to do: show people possibilities.”