"These sixteen 2-minute pieces are little jewels of sound. And like a diamond, they refract the soundscapes of Canada in multiple colourings and shadings into your listening ears." –Hildegard Westerkamp, Composer & Founding Member of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology

Today is the official launch date for an exciting website project that I was happily involved with as the designer. Audio Postcards Canada is an online exhibit featuring 16 pieces of audio art, chosen from all across Canada. Congratulations to all the sound artists featured on the site and to the amazing team who put it together!

Please enjoy : )

Here are a few of my thoughts and comments about the process of designing Audio Postcards Canada.

Starting in April when I was contacted by the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE), the Audio Postcards website team worked remotely from all corners of the world. I worked most closely with Andrea Dancer (Curator for the project, Chair of CASE, and Sound Artist) and Matt Griffin – who actually built the site based on my design mockups.

During our first skype meeting about this project, Matt made a comment to me that I believe actually made the design of this site possible. He said to me "don't worry about what you think is or isn't possible – just have fun with it." Following this advice taught me a valuable lesson about my own work process and the way I sometimes limit myself based on what I think is or isn't possible. This project also showed me the true benefits of working with very talented people.

Remote teamwork comes with unique challenges that I often take for granted, having done this work for many years. For example, in this article titled Seven Considerations For A Successful, Distributed Workforce, Forbes identifies a skill called "Digital Emotional Intelligence" – the ability to communicate effectively and maturely over cyberspace, despite the numerous limitations and challenges.

Another challenge is working on tight deadlines within a multitude of time zones – which for this project were ever-shifting since most of the team members were travelling internationally during the production of the site, simultaneously juggling other projects and unexpected major life events.

Clearly these limitations were overcome for Audio Postcards Canada. Well done, team!