In 2023, I assisted a group of open-source developers and community builders create a brand kit for a set of servers on the ActivityPub network. My designs are currently being viewed by a user base of more than ten million participants on the ActivityPub protocol (also known as the ‘Fediverse’), which is a network of online servers across a multitude of different software services, with these specific logos directly serving 300,000+ community members on their respective servers.

Additional Material:

– You can read more about this effort with my blog post on Mastodon, “Saying ‘Hello World.’”

– Of note, as this is a community-based and social form of design, I created a GitHub repository (where others can edit and adapt the design files) to have the design files available and create opportunities for community members to develop their own social content with the above materials. This design is principally social and lives within a community for both its identity and exposure.

– Some examples of the above include printing stickers (like this person has), grassroots fundraising and monthly giving (like on Patreon or OpenCollective), and recreating the materials for locally hosted emojis (like on Mastodon.world or Lemmy.world).

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have hosted various podcasts and built a skillset in audio editing. This has led me to build both interview skills and podcasting knowledge.

Examples:

– The Conversation – The Canadian Club of Calgary hosted a regular podcast during the pandemic when the organization could not host their regular, monthly luncheon with speakers. Instead, we pivoted online and hosted conversations with Premier Jason Kenney, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem, and more. Listen to Vincent and others interview these leaders here.

– The Alberta Election Podcast – Reaching the Top 100 political podcasts on Apple Podcasts in two months (#52 in politics category, 2,500+ listens during the 2023 Alberta general provincial election), in a limited series podcast. You can listen to these episodes through this Linktree page, where Vincent and his friend Omar take questions from the audience and chat about the happenings of the provincial election. A video teaser was shared on Omar’s LinkedIn account, which you can view here.

Examples:

– I write a monthly newsletter as a volunteer with the Downtown Core Neighbourhood Association, a community association in the downtown of Calgary. The readership of the association’s newsletter is roughly 250 neighbours. Read the newsletter here.

– Every Monday, I write a newsletter with the Calgary Alliance for the Common Good. The email list of the Calgary Alliance is in excess of 3,000+ community-minded citizens who are focused on making my city a better place. See previous issues of this newsletter on their internal microsite, which I also built, here.

In 2021 I was hired to assist in a local campaign by a group of health practitioners and community advocates to return community water fluoridation to my hometown. I detail this effort in my blog post, “Returning community water fluoridation to Calgary.”

One project I took at the Calgary Alliance is designing and sharing a fundraising portal, where Calgarians could send in donations to support Indigenous leaders in the city cut, create and then deploy tipis for our city’s Indigenous Peoples.

Through this work, I supported Indigenous leaders and built towards reconciliation, channelling the public interest in this society-wide effort and making it a relevant, engaging experience for Calgarians. The campaign met its goals and resulted in 3 tipis being constructed and delivered to deserving non-profits in the city.

In my roles with the Canadian Club of Calgary, I’ve been creating invitations, email templates, print products, and graphics featuring our speakers. These are shared with a mailing list of 1,000+ Calgarians who are passionate about the public discourse and community building.

The Canadian Club of Calgary hosts a monthly speaker at the Ranchmen’s Club in the downtown of my city. These speakers range from former astronauts, Prime Ministers, Premiers, notable public intellectuals and leaders in our city. Learn more about the Canadian Club of Calgary here.

For the last two years, I have been supporting a team of volunteers who founded and are building a community association for the downtown core of Calgary. I also volunteer with their monthly newsletter, curating content, designing their current logo and pull-up banner, built and host their website and regularly designing various posters.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, I built up a skillset around online presentations, slide deck creation, working with Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), templates for PowerPoints and content delivery.

The building of this skillset culminated in being on hand as technical support for a city-wide mayoral debate in 2021 (viewed over 6,000 times across multiple platforms), hosting the Premier of Alberta as part of the Canadian Club of Calgary, and delivering training material to adult learners.

Examples:

An introduction to databases, with the Calgary Alliance for the Common Good. View here.

Premier Jason Kenney at the Canadian Club, interviewed by Vincent. View here.

Mayoral Forum in the 2021 Calgary Municipal Election. View here.

In the fall of 2020, my local fire hall was slated for closure. By mobilizing a group of volunteers and engaging in online advocacy, this decision was defeated and Fire Hall #6 continues to live on as a service provider to my community.

For this project:

– I designed the logo, built a petition website, and wrote/edited articles for public consumption. Collaborated with a team of 5 volunteers, delivering on advocacy and bringing attention to the issue to the local community. Engaged with over 4,000 Calgarians and developed an accountability document describing the work accomplished [PDF].

– Represented the organization to the media and spoke to city council during the 2021 budget deliberations. Took the photographs that local journalists then highlighted in their articles, integrated with written copy on the campaign website, and even was used by a city councillor on their official blog.

– Learn more about this project on my blog post on the subject, “Vincent visits City Hall.”

In the spring of 2020, I volunteered as a graphic designer for a grassroots cadre of Calgarians celebrating their love of a wandering bird in our city named Turk. Created dozens of graphics engaging a community that quickly grew from 500 followers to over 6,000 fans worldwide.

– My designs were used on merchandise that raised $7,200+ for the Calgary Food Bank and Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation. My t-shirt design was even featured in Avenue Magazine.

– Edited radio interviews to prepare them for sharing and showcasing the Turk Tracker (located here as a Story Map with ArcGIS) on various social media platforms. Designed a “Turk Icon” for ArcGIS to showcase where Turk has been in the city.

– I also wrote two blog posts on Turk, “The riveting tale of Turk, the turkey.” and “What Turk the Turkey meant to me.”

– Storyboarded, filmed, edited, and produced more than 60 videos featuring small business leaders in my community. Over a two-year period, these videos were viewed in excess of 100,000 times across multiple platforms.

– Created and then grew his mailing list from 500 to 6,000 in five months (2014), in addition to implementing a donor database and voter database that went on to build the member’s work in the next decade as he moved into higher positions. His email list ultimately grew to over 10,000 subscribers with an open rate twice that of our industry.

– As the assistant to Minister Hehr, I increased his Facebook followers by 35%, added 10,000 new Twitter followers, and created an Instagram account in the top 10% of all MPs for follower count and engagement (2018).

– Doubled the member’s Twitter following during his role as Member of Legislative Assembly (2014). This growth continued long afterwards, ultimately growing to over 25,000 followers (2019).