You’re not tired of 2019 wrap-ups already, are you?

Don’t worry, this isn’t your typical “looking back on what happened” style post. We’ll leave that to these guys, and these guys – they seem to have it down to a science. Instead, we polled all the Pound & Grainers from across both offices to find out how 2019 treated them. Curious as to who won the social wars in 2019? Personal music choices of 2019? How about emoji of the year? Read on to find out.

1 – What’s your Tweet-length summary of 2019?

Andre Buno, Senior Designer, Toronto – Wut it do babyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!

Jane Lee, Designer, Vancouver – 2019 is the year of the digital identity crisis!

Ksenia Sabchenyuk, Junior Designer, Toronto – Chair girl, a guy throwing poop at others, people touching ice-cream and putting it back at a grocery store…2019, you’ve been way too weird…

Marguerite Gaylie, Junior Strategist, Vancouver – Much better than 2018

2 – What’s a project you worked on in 2019 that you’ll never forget and why?

Kateland Clarke, Art Director, Vancouver – Casinos BC – It was my first ever film project and the only time I’ve ever spent more than half an hour in a casino (20 hours in two days to be exact!).

Penny Norman, Director of Strategy, Vancouver – BigSteelBox – Great clients, lovely brand, interesting strategy, great creative work

Jackson Murphy, Partner & Creative Director, Toronto – For me, I got to write a bunch of scripts for our BCLC client in a very short time while some of the team was away. While none of my scripts were eventually shot, the process was so fun, and it invigorated my creative batteries in about 36 hours for the rest of the year. Still coasting on those fumes. It was just a good tight brief, and simple ideas and it was a lot of fun. And a good lesson that the process and journey is actually pretty darn fun in this business. I think I just Ok. boomer’d myself?

Andre Buno, Senior Designer, Toronto – King of the Wild Videos. Because we used Jackson’s angelic voice for the VO.

3 – What’s a headline you read in 2019 that you’re happy you clicked on?

Jessica Luch, Art Director, Vancouver – I’m so glad I discovered the Strange Planet comics.

Dana Kopman, Group Account Director, Vancouver – Why feedback fails!

Kaisha De La Mare, Account Lead, Toronto – IDK…probably anything on Buzzfeed about puppies.

Jane Lee, Designer, Vancouver – Florida man [ blank ]

4 – What’s your 2019 Emoji? (Real or Made up)

Cam Lee, Interactive Lead Vancouver – 🤦

Marguerite Gaylie, Junior Strategist, Vancouver – 🤤

Andrea Grech, Social Media Manager, Toronto -🤰

Isabelle Chui, Producer, Vancouver – 🥮 (I didn’t realize there was one until I recently switched back to an iPhone)

Jackson Murphy, Partner & Creative Director, Toronto – Is there a crutch emoji yet?

5 – What’s a trend you noticed in 2019 that you kind of hope doesn’t carry through to 2020?

Marguerite Gaylie, Junior Strategist, Vancouver – Meatless chicken nuggets

Kaisha De La Mare, Account Lead, Toronto – Those chunky white dad sneakers. I just can’t…

Jane Lee, Designer, Vancouver – Unpopular opinion, but Dark Mode

Kateland Clarke, Art Director, Vancouver – All the neon, eye-burning colour palettes.

6 – Tik Tok? Snap? IG? Twitter? Something else? Who do you think won Social Channel of 2019?

Jessica Luch, Art Director, Vancouver – Despite Tik Tok being pretty popular in 2019, I think Instagram’s ability to bring influencers’ buying power to the masses with the ‘swipe up’ was ever powerful this year. But overall, I think Youtube really took the cake in 2019.

Jackson Murphy, Partner & Creative Director, Toronto – I think you have to give it to TikTok.

Ksenia Sabchenyuk, Junior Designer, Toronto – Definitely Instagram because it keeps copying all of the features from other channels which isn’t necessarily a good thing but I’d rather use one channel that offers quite a lot than jump between different accounts.

Bryan Jones, Tech Lead Vancouver – Apparently Tik Tok? Isn’t that what the kids are using these days? 👧

7 – What’s your 2019 Hustle Jam?

Kateland Clarke, Art Director, Vancouver – Tempo by Lizzo

Penny Norman, Director of Strategy, Vancouver – Drag is Magic by Nina West

Erin Dafos, Digital Brand Planner & Media Specialist, Vancouver – Jet Black by Anderson Paak

Andre Buno, Senior Designer, Toronto – Devil in a New Dress by Kanye

8 – What digital channel or piece of tech are you super excited to see more of in 2020?

Ksenia Sabchenyuk, Junior Designer, Toronto – Talking robots. They’re creepy but I want to know when I should start preparing myself for some human-robots war.

Marguerite Gaylie, Junior Strategist, Vancouver – The Canadian Bidet

Jessica Luch, Art Director, Vancouver – More immersive experiences online. More WebGL – more three.js – more GLSL. And hopefully, more well-designed cross-platform campaigns. Fingers crossed!

Jackson Murphy, Partner & Creative Director, Toronto – I’m still pretty jacked up over the iPhone 11’s camera – its night time photos are a real game changer. Could it get even better in 2020? I’m guessing for sure. And that’s crazy to contemplate.

9 – Finish this Hot Take: “2020 is gonna be the year of _____”

Jane Lee, Designer, Vancouver – The Nerdz

Dana Kopman, Group Account Director, Vancouver – More interactivity in advertising

Kaisha De La Mare, Account Lead, Toronto – More voice search integrations

Jackson Murphy, Partner & Creative Director, Toronto – How do you even top Chicken Wars 2019?

That’s a wrap on 2019 for Pound & Grain. Looking forward to 2020 and all the shiny new things!