PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Gregory Alan Elliott is an artist, illustrator and graphic designer with over 35 years of experience.

Greg’s father was an Art Director, and Greg spent much of his childhood in Toronto Ad Agencies like J. Walter Thompson. From a young age he'd join his father on trips to printing companies, photo and art studios, and on location shoots.

In the early 1980s Greg graduated with honours and won awards in Experimental Art from the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University). Courses included video, animation, holography, painting, and sculpture. Greg also turned a Volkswagen Beetle into a boat. 

In the mid-1980s as a Junior Art Director at Scali McCabe Sloves, Greg was one of the first Canadians to work daily on an Apple Macintosh computer as Apple was the agency’s new client. Even though Greg is still creating on a Mac every day, Greg has retained his off-computer illustration and experimental art skills.

For 15 years in advertising agencies as an Creative/Art Director, Greg created campaigns and provided creative/design that kept existing clients happy and won many new clients. Greg usually received first draft approval from clients; and, since Greg’s first drafts were almost "final art” it meant Greg could provide time-efficient and effective creative for many clients. His skills earned him the title "product" in some of the agencies he worked for.

After a long career in Advertising Agencies, in the early 1990s, Greg went to create for television at Toronto’s multi-station Citytv, which had a very open creative environment at the time. Greg was fortunate to work as an unofficial creative assistant to ChumCity’s Creative Director, and served on MuchMusic’s Video Review Board. Greg also created on-air graphics and animations, designing products for the CityStore (including a snow globe), and redesigned the set for the Citytv Newsroom on a very tight budget. In 1993, Greg also conceptualized a television show about the “new information super-highway” (AKA the internet) called CityOnline. He also created the logo and designed the show’s set, and recommended the host. He even did a few CityPulse on-air weather reports when the weatherman was away.

After 2.5 years at Citytv, Greg moved on to work at The City of Mississauga where he became an award-winning employee in the Creative Services Department. Working for 16 years (with 5 other graphic designers), Greg designed, created campaigns, and illustrated for the Mayor, Councillors, Directors and City employees. Greg is well-versed in Public Sector campaigns and public good initiatives, like Placemaking, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, Transit, Building Branding, and Anti-Bullying to name only a few. Greg also created for internal communications.

Over his design career, Greg has volunteered his art and design talents to start-ups with low or no creative budget, who were attempting to “benefit humanity". One of his first “free” corporate image designs was for Outland Reforestration when it started up in the early 1980s… Outland has planted over a BILLION trees since then, and only recently has started using a new logo.

Other “free” corporate images have been designed for women-run “community good” initiatives, these include NotFarFromTheTree.org and GardenJane.com which promote food and gardening skills to people and corporations. Not Far From The Tree generates additional income from the sale of Greg’s illustrations on posters and t-shirts, as well as products adorned with the NFFTT logo. 

Greg’s “Shade The Barns” poster raised money in 2011 for local mothers (The Shady Ladies) to purchase large shade structures for the playground at Toronto’s Wychwood Barns Artscape. "The volunteer-run campaign raised funds through direct donations, sales of a poster designed by Toronto artist Gregory Alan Elliott and contributions that return a brick or a picnic bench inscribed with the donor’s name." At the time of this Toronto Star article, the group had raised more than $12,200 through the sale of Greg's posters.

Illustrations, designs and logos have been created for dozens of start-ups and community initiatives like the student-run Lunik Coop at York University’s Glendon Campus and Kensington Market’s Pedestrian Sunday. Greg also helped Yvonne Bambrick build Kensington Market’s Garden Car which is a popular tourist attraction in Toronto.

ALL of Greg’s clients, employers and charities have always been very happy with his creativity and design talents, as well as his ability to create and design solutions that are effective, easily implemented and timeless.