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When I was growing up, my mother would take notes about what sports we kids played, how tall we were at certain ages, and what we wanted to be “when we grew up.” My entries say things like: Mike wants to be: an astronaut, a fireman, a baseball player. And variations of [...] Early this year I interviewed Ray Larabie, a Canadian font designer (from Ottawa), who lives and works in Nagoya, Japan. Ray studied animation at Sheridan college and worked initially in the video game industry. He runs a successful company called Typodermic. I knew about Ray back in my early days of design (mid 90s) because [...] Photo by Jackman Chiu On the morning of my birthday, August 22, we were doing our usual breakfast time things when suddenly the TV announced that Jack Layton had passed. What a shock! It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was amazing to witness the coverage on CBC and other channels [...] "I want it all" – Marian Bantjes If you get a chance you must head to the Onsite gallery at OCADU and catch the Marian Bantjes exhibit. Marian recently published, “I Wonder,” a beautifully printed and design “illuminated manuscript” (as design guru Steven Heller has described it). She is definitely one of Canada’s hottest [...] Illustration by Mike Simpson – Strong-and-Free Update (March 29): Yesterday the band Arcade Fire completed the trifecta – winning Best Group and 3 other awards at the Canadian Juno awards – after bringing home awards at both the British and American music awards shows. Arcade Fire won a Grammy award on Sunday [...] Mike has been an earnest student of film since he studied the “History of Cinema” and “Italian Cinema” at university. Mike is an aspiring filmmaker with a few short videos under his belt. Currently he is working on “City Symphony” – a hybrid documentary / music video that includes music by his alter-ego “Mikooshka.” Here [...] The ImagineNATIVE Film Festival kicked off last night – following up on a busy summer in Toronto cinema festivals (Hot Docs, TIFF). The film festival runs international movies and “celebrates the latest works by Indigenous peoples on the forefront of innovation in film, video, radio, and new media.” One movie that caught my eye is [...] It was with great excitement that one day early this summer a search for “Douglas Coupland” at the Toronto Public Library website yielded an amazing find: “Extraordinary Canadians – Marshall McLuhan.” This is a book by Coupland which explores the life and ideas of a most iconic Canadian. And if you are familiar with Douglas [...] < Photo of Maracatu Nunca Antes, Toronto-based Brazilian music group, by Yvonne Bambrick Kensington Market is a colorful, lively place chock full of quaint shops and colorful characters. On the last Sunday of every month they hold an innovative, car-free, pedestrian-only street festival. My pal Grey Coyote is the President of the Kensington Market Action Committee [...] Two art show / exhibitions open this Friday that explore the geography of Ontario, one focusing on the man-made spit at the foot of Leslie St. in Toronto, and the other on the remote wilds of northern Ontario, north of Thunder Bay by and reached via Highway 11. I don’t really frequent art openings and [...] |
Mike Simpson is a teacher, writer, musician and designer from Toronto, Canada. He is a new media enthusiast and has been "strongandfree" since 1996. Mike is working on new graphic design, developing websites and multimedia, and leading training workshops on weekends. Check out Strong+Free for his Design and Media work. Check out Mike's Edu-Tech Workshop site. Please contact him at this address: mike | strongandfree.ca 
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