Local pair receive highest honour for designers in Canada

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This article was published 31/08/2023 (760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg designers Andrea and Paul Tétrault, partners in Tétro Design, have been awarded Fellowships by Design Professionals of Canada, the highest honour for designers in Canada, joining only 50 other recipients in the organization’s 63 year history.

This year the couple is celebrating their 25th anniversary of their firm and their marriage.

“We have been involved in the organization and I have been on the executive but we did not have this on our radar,” Andrea said. “We were pretty chuffed when we heard about it.”

Tétro styles itself as a design house — Andrea said graphic design sounds “old-timey” — working on branding and design projects over the years for the likes of Canada Post, the National Arts Centre, Shimano, Young People’s Theatre, African Development Bank, Canadian Energy Regulator Young People’s Theatre, The Forks, Pollard Banknote, the Downtown Winnipeg Biz and many more.

Melanie MacDonald, the executive director of Design Professionals of Canada (DesCan), said the award is only given to those who have made a great impact on the profession.

“It could be either design impact or community impact and in this case, Andrea and Paul have both,” said MacDonald.

Members must nominate a Fellow and then be endorsed by three other members from outside the honorees’ region.

“So you can understand how truly significant the impact is when someone from Halifax endorses someone from Winnipeg,” she said.

The Tétraults were both born in Winnipeg and both graduated from the graphic design program at Red River College. Paul has Métis roots and Andrea spent a few years after graduating working in the advertising industry in Toronto, before coming back to Winnipeg to work for Circle Design.

“I had a different idea of the work we wanted to do,” Andrea said. “I didn’t want to be in capital ‘A’ advertising. We still do some advertising but we don’t have that ad agency focus.”

Circle Design was founded by the late Rob Peters, who was one of only two other Manitobans to be named Fellows by DesCan. The other is Steven Rosenberg from DooWah Design.

When Peters decided to retire about 10 years ago, he asked the Tétraults to take over the business, which they did, folding it into Tétro.

The Tétraults have been around long enough to have worked through the technology arc from analog to digital. She said while she and Paul may use pen or pencil and paper when working on the early thumbnail concepts, she said her younger colleagues are more intuitive with computers and do that same kind of early work using digital tools.

“It has really evolved. We still do graphic design but it is a lot more strategic now and it’s a little broader,” she said. “We develop partnerships. It is way less transactional. It’s not so much about creating products as it is creating systems and brands.”

While the technology has changed, the demand in the marketplace has stayed constant. And technology has made everyone a little more savvy when it comes to design presentation so that, as Andrea said, “Everyone has had to up their game.”

And the Tétraults have been up to the challenge.

“If Tétro has a mission, it’s “do work that matters”, said Paul Tétrault. “After 25 years in business, one of the luxuries we’ve earned is being selective in the work we do. I’m very proud of the client list we’ve built and our body of work. Our work is incredibly diverse, but all of it makes us feel like we’re doing something for the good.”

They’ve designed postage stamps and beer labels, helped launch the world’s first National Indigenous Theatre, and re-branded one of the country’s largest federal agencies.

The firm has held steady with about nine employees for a few years and they feel they are not compelled to get bigger in order to win bigger projects.

“Our thing is not just about getting you to look better,” Andrea said. “It’s about allowing the client to function better or be a better reflection of who they actually are, giving their in-house marketing teams usable tools and functional systems to work with.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca