A soupçon of visual punning.
A dash of good timing.
A gentle invitation to break your fast at Amer.
A cracker of an ad for the Ramadan season from DDB Egypt via Ads of the World.


Advertising Agency: DDB, Egypt
Creative Director / Art Director: Wael A. Azzam
Copywriter: Mohammad Salah
Published: August 2009


Article: Creative Commons License 2009 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.
In other words, as long as you attribute ownership of these articles or posts to me you are free to use them and re-use them.
Go ahead. Spread the love and the knowledge.

From time to time Pushing Buses happens on a link or nugget of information or page that just happens to help us all push buses - or trains or LRT. This simple interactive page from the outstanding online mag GOOD, shows us the difference of between the impersonal car-centric streets of the past and the vibrant people-focused streets of the future. Every transit planning site should be able to illustrate the benefits of transit as effectively. This one really rocks my boat. Click here to get the full experience.


Image via visualizeus
Article and blog, copyright Gavin Barrett 2009

Smart, hip and desi, Masala Chai is a steaming cup filled with desi design wit. Check it out. Posts range from an intro to the stellar fold-your-own paper dolls of Mira Malhotra (shown here) to the Madhubani-folk-art-inspired paintings of Arti Sandhu. Respect.

A common sobriquet that describes Chinese Canadians with a job in Hong Kong and a home and family in Canada.

The term finds its provenance in the post-1997 phenomenon that saw many Chinese Canadian families set up homes in Canada while the main breadwinners returned to Hong Kong to earn their living.

Then, as now, it was often easier to find employment in one's country of departure (and certainly more lucrative), than to find an accepting and open-minded employer in Canada who was willing to accept your credentials and experience as valid, and willing to pay you equitably, on the basis of those qualifications.

At the same time the communist government in Beijing deployed several measures to reassure Hong Kong Chinese that it was business as usual in Hong Kong. Though no such promises were made in the area of political freedom, the fact that Hong Kong continued to prosper after the hand-over encouraged many Chinese immigrants to return.

Nonetheless, in a classic demonstration of circumspection so prevalent in Asian culture, they maintained their status as permanent residents or Canadian citizens. They also maintained their homes in Canada and, typically, sent their children to Canadian schools and universities, while they shuttled back and forth (hence the term astronaut - for the amount of time spent suspended above the earth).

It is estimated that 2/3rds of all male immigrants from Hong Kong live outside Canada according to a 2007 Vancouver Sun article quoting a study by the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia.

And oh, the real Chinese astronauts - the guys who do the spacewalk - they're called taikonauts.


Image via NY Times, copyright: European Pressphoto Agency


Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

Indian English is being a bhelpuri language. It is being sweet and hot and tangy.

In a most excellent piece first published in 1987 in the New York Times, Steven Weisman (who was being the Times' New Delhi bureau chief), takes a big, big bite of this most zabardast dish. Please to try it by clicking on post title, and I am promising you will be coming back for more.

Shown above: the first ads in Indian English ever written in Canada. I was writing these while being employed at Vickers and Benson for Asian Television Network and Bell ExpressVu. The ads were attracting a readership of their own - and the kind publications were offering to carry a second round just like that only, for free! All gods are great I am saying!


Article and blog: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

Barrett and Welsh, submitted 5 entries in this year's Summit Creative Awards, an international award show that recognizes the creative work of small/independent agencies.

All five entries won.

Four of them (2 gold, 2 silver) were for York Region Transit's summer "dump the pump" campaign featured in an earlier posting on Pushing Buses - the winning entries are shown here again.

It's only possible to do good work when you have good clients and good suppliers.
To both, thank you.