Not all tax spending is necessarily wasteful tax spending. ”Spending is also an investment. (Kitchener) Council needs to take the long view and support investment that leads to current and future prosperity,” says our very own Rebecca Short, MFX’s Operations Director, in her letter to the editor in today’s Record.

Believing in this community and the vision that investment will lead to further growth and employment, Rebecca and husband John recently made a serious investment, moving two businesses, MFX and 17Muscles to Kitchener’s Tannery and Digital Media HUB.

So what is your take? Do you believe that spending our tax dollars on the development of Kitchener is an investment in the future reputation and economic growth of our fair city? Have your say, weigh in on the issue now.

Well, the boxes are unpacked, the Internet is up and running, and the ‘Home Sweet Home’ sign is on the door. And amid all the chaos there was only one minor breakdown when the coffee machine wasn’t hooked up on Monday (sorry guys, I need my AM caffeine or I get a little cranky).

MFX has officially moved into the Tannery!

In our last post, where you can find our new mailing address, we hinted at “some very exciting news” to come this week. Well don’t get too excited just yet because, as our Lead Designer and friend James Bisch would say, “It needs to marinade in awesome sauce juuuuuuust a bit longer.”

So in other words, we’re making you wait until Friday.

But that’s OK, because Friday is not only the day where we dust off and spin tracks like ‘The Final Countdown’ and ‘Funky Cold Medina’ in the MFX house. We’ll also be spinning some MFX news that will change the world as we know it, for the better of course, ’cause that’s the way we roll.

A high-profile, local art gallery is a fan of MFX Partners’ latest socially-focused, store-front graphic design project, dedicated to small business, not-for-profits and start-ups.

Design Changes, launched late last year, has been successful by delivering high quality design services, at published rates. Most of the work is produced on a project-by-project basis. Where it is more appropriate, long-term contracts/commitments can be arranged.

Scott Lee, Manager of Design Changes, worked with The Cambridge Art Gallery to develop a service agreement that meets their unique graphic needs. Several projects have already been delivered.

While municipalities talk and the business community watches, Design Changes is doing something to support the financially challenged cultural community in the Waterloo Region.

Local small business, not-for-profits and start-ups have been quick to appreciate the determination of Design Changes to provide exceptional graphic services for their market at published, reasonable rates.

Recently, one of our socially-focused clients asked if we would donate our talents to help promote their fund raising gala. We did and the event, held last month, raised more money than any other gathering in the client’s 10-year history.

Design Changes, a project of MFX Partners, is also committed to contributing a minimum of $10,000 per year to worthy, socially-focused causes in the area. Further details are on the web site at designchanges.ca (click on ‘changers club’ to learn more).

Coffee is always great at Downtown Kitchener’s A Matter of Taste. And the people you might meet make the visit particularly interesting. Yvan and I met there last tonight to unwind and ended up talking to a guy who just won second prize in the prestigious, US based National Print Photographers Association (NPPA) 2010 photo contest. Fellow’s name is Ian Willms.

You can check out his work at www.ianwillms.com

I was particularly taken by the blog post on his site about a local ’street’ fellow, Martin Tarback (photo above of Martin taken by Ian), and the efforts by Ian and one of his friends to create a unique ‘memorial’ to Martin (who died in 2009).

I run an event in Kitchener-Waterloo called CultureCamp. It’s part of a group of projects focused on our community and something that MFX has begun to support with two Social Design Interns. The larger project related to CultureCamp is the social network supporting the events during the in-between time. So far we’ve done three (3) CultureCamps and the reviews have been very positive.

So what’s CultureCamp?

CultureCamp is a user-generated “unconference”—an open, creative, participatory workshop-event, whose content is provided by participants related to an emerging understanding of culture.

CultureCamp will invite participants from the community to come share their ideas about our city.

Anyone can present a session or host a discussion around a topic of interest. Session order is decided at the event and generated by participants.

So what happened at the event? Well, this for one—a crowd-sourced zine made by participants at the day.