We’ve got a poster for sale! Our first step in bringing some things into the world that we’d want ourselves. It’s a big, stylish presentation of the international nautical signal flags. The perfect accompaniment for the oaken halls of your future yacht.

Only one hundred in existence. You can buy one right here.

*Pffffbbbbppphhhhhh* That’s the sound of a party favor mid-partying. Northern Army celebrated it’s 2nd birthday last week and wow, good times were had and shit got weirded by all. We had a cake made of burgers, a chalk wall filled with aroused sea-life, hungarian spirits and a straight up tactical nuke of plaid. It’s probably the only 2nd birthday party you’re allowed to be awesome at all year so we hope it was a good one. Huge thanks to everyone that made it out.

Now please play this:

While enjoying these:

About damn time! After months of mouse-finger-breaking hardship, NA 2.0 is live, and we’re pretty jazzed about it.

The check-pattern grid design was inspired by an old vintage ad for Florida attractions, and then Helvetica happened to it because we’re Canadian and it’s what we do. We wanted our work to be the focus of the site, so we made the entire thing our portfolio. Just browse around. Enjoy life. Check out some work, read some blog posts, get some Dribbbles in you.

Did I mention that it’s fully responsive? This site is meant to look as much at home on an iThing as it does in a browser. Hell, it’s better on mobile to be honest with you – it feels good in the hand. Let me tell you though, making a flexible, responsive layout out of a strict pattern of “image / solid box / image / etc…” causes more trouble than a 5 year old with a Sharpie, but we made it work, we always do.

Anyway, it’s a happy moment for us; we’ve been full steam ahead on client work and sometimes, and fellow designers know this, your own work can fall by the wayside. Not today, workload. Not today.

Shoutout to our resident web-wonder Curtis for sweating, toiling and filling the office full of sketches that look like they’re from that shed in A Beautiful Mind. You did good, kid.

In the past decade, there have been thousands upon thousands of scientific and technological advancements, though arguably, the largest single trend within all of these steps forward was the democratization of the tools of production – putting in the hands of amateurs the tools that previously only the professionals could afford.

That simple fact has changed almost every industry on the planet, and has made obsolete a few more. But practically any industry that relied on specialized equipment versus specialized expertise has seen a seismic shift in innovation that caused by providing tools of creation and distribution to the masses.

It’s especially true in the realm of the Web. No, not just anyone with a keyboard and a can of Rockstar can write code, but the huge code repositories and libraries that exist today make it easier than ever to build the next hit game, app, social network or tool.  Social networks, viewed by many as the shiny object of the week a mere five years ago, now provide APIs to allow apps to easily integrate a social layer to allow sharing and enhance the user experience.

When everyone has access to the same tools, what’s the competitive advantage?

The answer is design. Yes, this industry is another one that was disrupted by the proliferation of tools like Photoshop and digital cameras, but unlike many other industries, the industry embraced the shift. Kids with Photoshop meant design students with a better eye, digital layouts meant more efficiencies and digital photography meant quality imagery for a fraction of the cost.

Yesterday, Facebook bought Instagram for one billion dollars. The more important point may be that they didn’t buy Hipstamatic – the competitor app that’s pretty much the exact same thing. The big difference? Even though Hipstamatic was first to market, Instagram had a better UI, better design and better social features. In short, the experience was better, so more people used it. Certainly, there were other factors at play, but one could make the case that in this instance, better design was worth $1,000,000,000 – give or take a few million.

It’s nearly impossible to quantify the value of great design. But, in a world where the barrier to entry is so small that the value of an unexecuted idea approaches zero, all that matters is the experience. The look, the brand, the way it works, the way it connects, the way it makes us feel. Yes, your business needs to have a great idea and needs to work, but that’s just the first level. It’s no longer good enough to be good enough – you need to stand apart from the competition.

Design is the differentiator. Returns may vary, but it’s one of the most important investments you’ll make in the success of a business.

A pizzeria in Dubai has launched a refrigerator magnet that literally orders pizza to your door with the push of a button. Thankfully this brilliant idea hasn’t made it to Ottawa yet, or I’d be kissing my summer weight-loss plan good bye.

The “VIP Fridge Magnet” is a pizza box-shaped device that’s connected to Red Tomato Pizza via the the Bluetooth connection on your smartphone. Push the button to order your usual, and you get a text message confirmation right after. You can update your pizza order online at any time which then syncs to the device. Talk about efficiency.

Many “Smart Appliances” have recently been in the spotlight for embracing modern technology. Samsung just unveiled a refrigerator that plays music and displays your Google Calendar. LG announced a refrigerator that helps you maintain your diet, notifies you when you’ve run out of certain groceries, and has a feature that can chill a bottle of wine in eight minutes — something I need to stay far, far away from.

Nowadays, we don’t just communicate with brands through phone and internet, something as simple as a magnet can be a communications device. Designing an experience doesn’t necessarily have be through web or print anymore. Brands used to have only a few media to worry about — now the path for innovation is practically limitless. The future of connected devices has the opportunity to capture a large, emerging market if companies manage to develop comprehensive, integrated solutions.

Just imagine a magnet on your fridge that hails a cab — you can finally remove the drunks from your home at 4am and happily pass out on your couch beside your empty box of pizza.

If you’re like most creative workers, you probably feel pangs of self-doubt that get in the way of both creativity and productivity.

Enter: science. It turns out that what you need isn’t another cup of coffee or to steal a few of your kid’s Ritalin – it’s a transcranial direct current. In other words, electricity applied directly to your brain.

An article in New Scientist outlines research being conducted at Advanced Brain Monitoring in California to use currents applied to the brain to enhance mood, concentration, and ability to focus, or “flow.”

If you’re good at something (and I hope you are… it’s kind of depressing if you’re not), you know that feeling of flow when you’re in the zone and you can see through the Matrix. It can happen whether you’re working on something important or playing a video game, but, as most people know… it’s hard to force if you’re not feeling it.

Here’s the best thing about it – all you need to do this yourself is a 9-volt battery and some electrodes, and you’ve got yourself an honest-to-goodness DIY thinking cap. Or, if you’re not the handy type, and you have access to a prescription pad, you can buy one ready-made.

(Disclaimer: Our lawyer says to tell you not to shoot electricity through your head.)

Such a technology does, however, raise some interesting moral questions. Will this create a divide between haves and have-nots among students and workers? If these results continue, will businesses force employees to don electric hats to leverage their full potential? I’m not going to lie – I’m thinking about it a little.

This is really just experiments at this point, but it does raise an interesting thought. As technology advances, it starts to move from a thing we use to a thing we are. I think we’re starting to see the beginnings of that now. I can only imagine how technology like this will be a part of our lives in 20 years.