Congratulations to alumni Morgan Curley, Marc Husted and Jared Darcy Tailfeathers for being named in this year's Top 40 Under 40 by Avenue Calgary (external link) magazine.
Morgan Curley (BDes '11, VCD) and Marc Husted (BDes '08, Photography) craft a cool and light-hearted aesthetic for Calgary's hospitality industry through their design and branding company, Bamff (external link).
Chefs and design architects get much fanfare in the restaurant industry, but Morgan Curley and Marc Husted are the unsung heroes behind the way many of our favourite local food and beverage brands make us feel. From the instantly iconic signage and matchbooks at Major Tom to the explosion of nostalgia at Eighty-Eight Brewing Co., Curley and Husted use their design savvy and good-natured humour to create brand identities for a range of businesses around the city. "We help companies find their unique voice," Husted says.
After knowing each other for about a decade, the duo joined forces after both bid on the Eighty-Eight account as freelancers, figuring the design could benefit from two sets of eyes. They officially founded Bamff (they found it funny to spell out "Banff" phoenetically) in 2019 and have since worked on everything from naming and brand strategy to packaging and logo design for over 30 local clients, including Concorde Entertainment Group, Made by Marcus, Ol' Beautiful Brewing Company and Vine Arts, as well as companies in Vancouver, Toronto, New York and elsewhere. Their client list not only represents some of Calgary's most acclaimed restaurants, but the kind of businesses that define our local zeitgeist.
Read more about Morgan Curley and Marc Husted (external link).
Jared Darcy Tailfeathers (BFA '15, Painting) celebrates Indigenous ways of knowing through the creation and amplification of multidisciplinary art.
Growing up away from his father's family on the Kainai Nation in southern Alberta, Jared Darcy Tailfeathers didn't always feel connected to his Blackfoot community. He explored his culture through leatherwork and beading as a teen. But it wasn't until his graduation in 2015 from Alberta College of Art + Design (now AUArts) that he found his calling in Indigenous art.
Tailfeathers was asked to participate in a project centred around Indigenous musicians, and was hired as an Indigenous placemaker at the Calgary Public Library. In these roles, he worked with prominent artists, obtained art and relics to display in the library, and learned from Treaty 7 Elders. "It opened my eyes to my cultural inheritance," he says. "I regained some of those lost connections, like language and protocols, and getting a traditional Blackfoot name, Sikomh Kokomii (Calling Crane)."
Tailfeathers wears many hats: muralist, musician, comic book artist and researcher are just a few of the roles he's had over the last five years, while also devoting time to making art centred around Indigenous ways of knowing. He's also the primary caregiver to his three-year-old daughter, who joins him at the occasional mural project or research site.
Read more about Jared Darcy Tailfeathers (external link).
