Studio

We're Significant Other, a creative agency in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver.

For more than a decade we've worked with organizations that answer to the public, their membership, or a mandate rather than a market. We build the brands and platforms they run on, with a small senior team that stays close to the work throughout and sticks around for the important moments after launch.

Our story

It’s hard to see your own work from the inside. The strategy makes sense to the people who wrote it, the brand still looks right to the people who’ve lived with it, and the platform does what it did the day it launched. Seeing it the way the world does takes someone who’s outside the work but still takes it as seriously as you do.

For almost fifteen years Significant Other has been that partner to our clients. In practice the first conversation is about them, the hard conversation happens early, and the relationship keeps going after launch, through platforms extended as the work grows and calls that come before the next big decision rather than after it. Organizations, like people, are shaped by who they keep close, and a good number of the same people have kept us close for most of those years.

John Ryan and Jacob Sharrard started Significant Other in Toronto in 2013, the same year they married each other. Though the team and the work have grown since then, we’ve kept the promise they made to each other and to our clients: do great work for good people, with conviction, commitment, and candour.

Co-founder

Jacob Sharrard RGD he/him

Co-founder

John Ryan he/him

Our team

Chris White RGD he/him

Creative Strategy Lead
Adrian Trimble he/him

Senior Developer
Janine Thomas RGD she/her

Senior Designer
Noah Ortmann RGD he/him

Senior Designer
Roberto Cinetto he/him

Senior Developer
Nikita Thethi Associate RGD she/her

Junior Designer
Anika Jingco Associate RGD she/her

Junior Designer
Marc Pereira he/him

Project Manager

How we work

We take the time

We read what you’ve written, including the reports nobody expected us to read. We talk to the people who make the decisions and the people who live with them. Nothing gets designed until we can describe who you are in words you’d put your name to.

We say what we see

Because we take your work as seriously as you do, we’ll tell you what you need to hear, early enough that you can act on it. That includes the things that are hard to see from inside your own work, said plainly and kindly.

We stick around

Some of our clients have been with us for more than a decade. We’re here for them in the moments that matter, and they know where to find us in between. We’d rather be the people you call when something’s changing than the people you have to call every week.

We build for handoff

Everything we make is built to be run by the people who own it: a brand your team can apply without us, a platform your team can edit without a developer, and documentation that assumes we won’t be in the room. Accessibility is a requirement on every project, whether or not the brief asks for it. A brand or a platform that some people can’t use hasn’t done its job, so we build to Ontario’s standard, which is among the highest anywhere.

What we stand for

We’re a queer-owned business, certified through CQCC, Canada’s Queer Chamber of Commerce. We work to have a team with a range of backgrounds and perspectives, we encourage people from underrepresented communities to apply for open positions, and we share our openings where they’ll reach them. We review every design for who’s represented in it, in the images, the illustration, and where the fonts and the music come from.

Where we work

The Significant Other team is grateful to have the opportunity to meet and work on many traditional Indigenous homelands, including those of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples as covered by Treaty 13 and which is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We want to express our respect for the territories we reside in and honour those who have and continue to live and work on this land for generations.

Who we work with

People who believe in what they’re doing and want the world to know why. Most are research institutes, cultural organizations and advocacy groups, in arts and culture, research and innovation, or climate and justice. Most are the kind of organization where being understood is harder than it sounds: a lot of stakeholders, careful language, and an audience that has partly made up its mind.

We’re the right fit when you want a partner who will see the best in you and still tell you what you need to hear. We’re the wrong fit when what you want is someone to execute a decision that’s already been made, and we’ll say so on the first call so nobody loses a month figuring it out.

Select clients

Azure Publishing (AZURE)
Casey House
Climate Action Network
Consumer Reports
Forests Canada
Government of Canada
Hariri Pontarini Architects
Institute of Population and Public Health (CIHR)
Kennedy Human Rights
Lloydlondon Architects
Loyalist College
Mercatto Restaurants
Northern Super League
Nova Scotia Forest Professionals
Number Ten Architects
Ontario Biodiversity Council
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry
Ontario Professional Foresters Association
Raw Signal Group
Resilience Alliance
Royal LePage
Salad King
Select Food Products
Squamish Nation
Stride Family Business Alliance
Studio Munge
The Bentway
The Globe and Mail
Tourism HR Canada
U/31
United Nations
University Club of Toronto
University of Toronto
YPO
ZincFive

Work with us

We hire slowly and for the long term, for people who want to take the time to understand the work before they design or build it. If that’s you, we’d like to hear from you, whether or not there’s an opening posted.

Get in touch

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