01 · Work
Places,
made choosable.
We'd rather show one district worked properly over years than a dozen logos with no idea whether any of them changed anything.
Full-service · 53.5461°N 113.4938°W · Edmonton AB
02 · Featured
Edmonton Chinatown
A historic district with real assets, a difficult decade and a story that had stopped being told by the people who live in it.
Edmonton's Chinatown carries more than a century of history, a dense concentration of independent business, and cultural institutions with genuine national profile. It also carries a public perception shaped largely by other people's coverage — safety, vacancy, decline — and a district split across two geographies that had drifted apart.
The organizations responsible for it were not short of plans. They were short of one story that businesses, cultural groups, the City and visitors could all recognise, and of the everyday machinery — a website, a calendar, a booking system, a brand — that turns a plan into something a person can act on this Saturday.
Our roleBrand, narrative and digital platform for the Chinatown Transformation Collaborative, alongside district marketing with the Chinatown BIA. Website rebuild, event and festival strategy, social presence, bookings, calendar and store — the operating layer a district needs to be visible.
The Chinatown Strategy is the City of Edmonton's. The capital projects belong to the district and its partners. Our work is the communications, brand and visitor product that make those things legible, bookable and fundable.
Chinatown Transformation Collaborative, reported by the client after the engagement closed.
Across every engagement reviewed. Quality 5.0, schedule 5.0, willingness to refer 5.0.
"Items were delivered on time and oftentimes ahead of deadline." — Director, CTC Edmonton.
03 · The portfolio
One district, every angle.
Governance, visitor product, festivals and international profile — built on one direction rather than assembled campaign by campaign.
District marketing and communications.
Brand, platform and ongoing communications.
Bookable culinary tour. [Award — name it.]
Visitor platform and district guide.
Identity and event strategy.
Brand and event communications.
Brand and event communications.
Identity and delegate communications.
04 · Other practice
Where else the work shows up.
Communications and strategy on municipal, provincial and federal campaigns across Western Canada, listed in full on its own page.
Province-wide communications in the Office of the Premier of Alberta: Alberta is Calling, the Alberta Recovery Plan and COVID-19 public information.
Issue campaigns, public engagement and stakeholder work for organizations trying to move a specific decision by a specific date.
05 · Attribution
We only claim what we did.
Place work has many authors. Agencies routinely describe a client's capital project, a city's strategy or a community's own effort as if it were their deliverable. We don't, and here's the standard we hold ourselves to.
A municipal strategy, a district plan or a capital project belongs to the organization that authored and funded it. We say we supported it, and we say how.
Visitor numbers move for many reasons. Where we report a figure, we say what we contributed and what else was happening at the same time.
Cultural districts are not our canvas. Where work came out of community leadership, it's described that way — including when it would look better the other way.
If you've worked with us and think anything on this page overstates our role, tell us and we'll change it.
06 · Start here
Your place is next.
Tell us the place, the mandate and the date something has to be approved. We'll tell you what we'd run, what you already have covered, and whether we're the right firm at all.
53.5461°N 113.4938°W · Churchill Strategy · Edmonton AB