You may not have heard of Victoria graphic designer Andrew Lewis — but the rest of the world already knows him.
That’s because Canada lags in the field of graphic design, according to Lewis, who was awarded a gold medal by Mexico in the second-largest poster exhibition in the world, at a ceremony Thursday.
“There’s a huge difference. Because we’re such a young country, we don’t have that knowledge of what the poster is about,” Lewis said in an interview. “It’s very exciting for a Canadian designer to win this award.”
Mexican ambassador Francisco Suarez-Davila arrived at the B.C. legislature to deliver the gold medal for the 2012 International Poster Exhibition to Lewis, for which his was selected from 8,400 entries. It is the first time a Canadian designer has won the gold medal in the competition’s 24-year history.
“Andrew Lewis is indeed an internationally recognized artist, an art director, a graphic designer, a [teacher] and, I would say, a very close friend of Mexico,” Suarez-Davila said.
“His prolific work includes [more than] 680 posters, some of which have become really emblematic. I’m convinced that this poster, which has been awarded a gold medal, will become one of those.”
Lewis created the winning co-branded poster for local retailer Baggins Shoes on Johnson Street. The graphic of a Converse Chuck Taylor sneaker incorporates the 1960s- and 1970s-era textile designs of Finland’s Marimekko.
Lewis could not attend the exhibition last year, so he waited until the ambassador travelled to B.C. to receive the award.
Locally, Lewis’s brands and designs are in plain sight — from the B.C. Arts Council logo and Brentwood Bay Lodge branding, to labels and posters for Canoe Brewpub and Spinnakers.
But the accolades have been arriving from outside the city for years. He has participated in exhibitions and taught at universities in Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador and Chile. His international clients include Perrier, Starbucks, Zyliss and Visa. Last year, he was invited as the only representative of Canada to France’s largest design exhibition, in Saint-Etienne, UNESCO City of Design.
Unfortunately, North America doesn’t embrace creativity in poster art in the same way, Lewis said. He gave the example of movie posters — when Poland brought in American films, they had to create their own posters for them, so they commissioned designers to do so.
“The difference between the two is night and day. They have beautiful illustrations and photography and typography — versus the American poster, which is basically just a head with text.”
That wasn’t always the case, he said, referring to designer Saul Bass, who famously collaborated with the likes of filmmakers Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick.
The problem, from Lewis’s perspective, begins in design education. “Really good conceptual ideas and classic design isn’t being taught anymore,” he said.
He recently approached Emily Carr University of Art and Design, hoping to host an international poster exhibition at the school that would show 150 to 200 posters by the the best designers in the world.
“The response was, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, it doesn’t fit with curriculum.’ I did that with the major galleries on the West Coast, too, and it was the same thing.”
Luckily for Lewis, he can continue working for the world from his home studio in Victoria. He has clients who give him full artistic freedom — like Twenty Something Theatre in Vancouver — and has no plans to leave. Each time he returns from an international art event, he’s happy to be home.
“I step off the plane in Victoria and there’s fresh air,” he said.
“It’s a beautiful place to live and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”