Dan O’Leary

Biography

Prior to moving to Canada from the UK, Dan spent eight years working in some of London’s leading design consultancies. Starting at Rodney Fitch & Company in 1997, Dan quickly gained experience working on numerous retail identities, branded environment and wayfinding projects in the UK and Asia. He has since worked at 20/20 Design & Strategy, Conran Design Group and Landor Associates on projects as diverse as branding the London head office of Sainsbury’s supermarkets and designing the new crest of Arsenal Football Club, one of the English Premier League’s leading teams. Other retail and branding projects for Sainsbury’s, Numico, Shell and Karstadt complete his portfolio of work in the United Kingdom.

Moving to Vancouver in 2005 to work at Karacters Design Group (a division of DDB Canada), Dan continued to add to his body of branding and environmental graphics experience; projects include exterior and interior environmental branding concepts for Finning International’s dealerships, exterior branding for Servus Credit Union and a sign program for BC Ferries as well as work for Vancity Credit Union and Getty Images. Dan also designed the Omega countdown clock for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, unveiled in downtown Vancouver in February 2007. More recent projects include a full exterior and interior signage program for the Grand Villa Casino in Burnaby, BC, creating a new visual language for the Vancouver Convention Centre and a rebranding project for Penningtons. Dan also has extensive packaging experience, working on redesign projects for So Nice soy milk, Camino Fairtrade organic chocolate and Silver Hills Bakery. Much of this work has received design awards in North America and Europe.

Enhancing the consumer experience through design is Dan’s primary goal. He strongly believes that though some of the best design [intentionally] goes unnoticed by end-users, the best ideas are the ones that change the way people look at something familiar. Outside of work, Dan is a keen photographer and spends time trawling eBay finding new ‘old’ cameras to add to his growing collection. He’ll often be found strumming his guitar, road cycling, kayaking, swimming, running, practising yoga and constantly on the lookout for table tennis opponents.