Cynthia Zamaria, Senior Vice President, GCI Canada
Kim Roman, Vice President, Consumer Lifestyle, GCI Canada

With summer just around the corner, our office is buzzing with excitement over our recent Bronze CPRS Award for the 3M Command Campus Tour and brimming in anticipation of the next hot trends in art, design, fashion and culture.

This season is all about rest, revitalization and reflection. Squeezed Fresh is designed to help you look around and think about why today looks like today, so that you can take a leading role in shaping the look of tomorrow. So read on for this month's quick sip of interesting and inspirational content and follow us on Twitter to get your juices flowing!

1. Recession Rage

More and more brands are using clever advertising and marketing campaigns that make light of the current economic climate and alleviate growing consumer fatigue with the recession. Is your brand able to offer consumers a positive breath of fresh air? Try replacing a realistic message with an optimistic message. Trust us, hope sells.

2. Revolution!

The AGO had an Uprising, Contact had a Still Revolution and the Power Ball was One Louder this year. The revolution theme was everywhere this spring, proving fundraising events are getting larger, louder and rougher around the edges. Goodbye passed appetizers...hello live pig roast?! How can your next event spice things up with a little rebellion?

3. Return of Burlesque

With the all-male burlesque troupe Boylesque hosting sold out shows, the buzzed about burlesque lounge Jezebel, another successful NYC Burlesque Festival and Toronto's Burlesque Festival coming up next month – it’s official – burlesque is back, baby. No wonder Dita Von Teese is one of the top followed celebs on Twitter.

Gypset Style

Move over Generation Y, here come the bright young Gypsetters. Fusing the carefree lifestyle of a gypsy with the sophistication of a jetsetter, Gypsetters are artists, designers and writers who live and work around the globe. This gorgeous book explores the unconventional, wanderlust lives of these cultural nomads and their chic bohemian surroundings.

Yes We Did: An Inside Look at How Social Media Built the Obama Brand

Think you know everything about social media? Think again. Rahaf Harfoush provides an enlightening and inspirational glimpse into the successful social media strategies that fuelled Obamamania. Learn about the campaign’s comprehensive use of technology and gain strategic insights that you can apply to your own brand. Click here to follow this new media maverick on Twitter.

This year’s annual Luminato Arts + Creativity Festival co-commissioned the Canadian premiere of Continuous City - a critically acclaimed multi-media experience that dissolves the boundaries between local and global while exploring how travel and technology have changed our sense of place and connection.

As the latest project from New York-based media company The Builders Association, Continuous City brilliantly blends live performance with video shot in Toronto and other cities around the world. The premise of the show is that wherever we are in our highly networked world, we are also inevitably somewhere else simultaneously.

Thanks to social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as personal devices like the iPhone and Blackberry, a travelling professional is able to keep in touch with thier boss, daughter and nanny all at once.

This provocative show has us thinking about whether our ever-evolving technological existence is actually creating a disconnect with how we communicate with one another. It will make you think twice the next time you check your email while having a conversation with someone.

Most office spaces have come a long way from the dingy cubicles and plastic plants we saw in several cult classic films from the 90s. Progressive art and design concepts have had a major influence on offices large and small across North America.

Organizations are now using their office space to communicate a brand essence. Furniture, lighting and accessories are now (more than ever) a medium used to convey a particular and bespoke message. Art is no longer an optional decorative item for blank walls – it’s used in unexpected and interesting ways, like at the bottom of a pool in the Thompson LES or on the ceiling of the new Proctor & Gamble’s Global Prestige Products space.

Outdoor living trends have also crossed over into professional office design and decor elements. With Toronto’s new Eco-roof Incentive Program, plus a growing number of locavores and 100 mile dieters, several hot restaurants and buildings are creating their very own urban green roofs and urban gardens.

We recently moved our GCI office to an area and space that we believe better suits our brand, vision and culture. Our new space is designed to accommodate a collaborative social community and thought-provoking environment, with several open areas, bright spaces and brainstorming pods. And what would a collaborative, creative office be without a rooftop deck? Beats us...we’ve got one!

Stay tuned for pictures of our new space in next the issue of Squeezed Fresh or better yet, drop in for a visit and see what the new GCI space is all about.