2023 Inductee

Don Watt

(1936 - 2009)

Design

If the measure of a posthumous Hall of Fame inductee is the legacy one leaves behind, there’s no questioning the honour bestowed on Don Watt, who died in 2009 at the age of 73. Watt pioneered a holistic approach to retail branding and design, injecting life into major retailers and their private brands, and created the original design from which the Canadian flag is based.

“He has one of the most illustrious careers of anyone in advertising or marketing history,” says Steve Mykolyn, a partner at Castor Design, former CCO of Taxi and a member of strategy’s Marketing Awards Advisory Board who nominated Watt for the Hall of Fame honour.

Not long after he founded Don Watt and Associates in 1966, Watt was hired by then-Loblaw CEO Galen Weston to rejuvenate Loblaws. Watt took a comprehensive approach at one of its locations. To evoke freshness, he repositioned produce at the front and featured large photographs of fresh food throughout the store. He repainted the storefront and parking lot lines, and redesigned the logo. A jump in sales followed, and Watt went on to replicate the changes across the chain and also refashioned multiple Loblaws house brands.

“Don changed the retail business from a visual standpoint,” says Ed Shikatani, whose first job was working as a designer for Watt – a career starter that led to Shikatani launching his own companies including Shikatani Lacroix Design (SLD) before retiring. “Watt controlled everything: the packaging, the store, store colour, the logo, what the building looked like. That was pretty unique at that time.”

For Loblaw’s No Name packaging, Watt created its simple yet impactful design, with its bold, black, lower-case text, classic Helvetica type and clean yellow background – a design inspired by a generic brand in black and white that caught his eye while in France.

“It’s a pretty safe bet to say that everyone in Canada has seen this work that was done in the ‘70s, which is perhaps even more ubiquitous today than it was back then,” says Mykolyn. “He took the stigma out of buying something generic and cheap and it flew off the
shelves. Don Watt changed retail forever.”

Watt also reinvigorated Loblaws’ President’s Choice label in the ‘80s by taking its name at face value and incorporating then-Loblaws president Dave Nichol into the brand: he turned Nichol’s handwritten “PC” signature into the brand logo, tapped Nichol to be the spokesman when William Shatner was no longer available and featured Nichol’s top picks inside the Insider’s Report flyer.

For Walmart, Watt designed the Supercentre retail model, along with its Sam’s Choice, Great Value and Equate brands. For Home Depot, he developed its distinctive orange logo and store concept. Watt was the first designer to use photo-symbolism on packaging, for Nestle. Says Shikatani, “Nescafé coffee was beautifully packaged with fresh coffee beans on it so you perceived it as fresh - but it was instant coffee. He focused on great photography. The big thing was: perception is reality.”

Brand after brand, Watt made the work look easy. Alexa Retchkiman, VP of international client development at Watt international, his namesake company, worked with Watt when she joined the company in the mid-‘90s. On her first work trip with Watt to Bentonville, Arkansas to meet with Walmart about its Great Value brand, she recalls being anxious that Watt appeared to be “doodling” rather than paying attention in the meeting. She says, “But then, he lays all his pages around the table and says, ‘Would any of these solutions work for you?’”

According to Retchkiman, Watt connected with clients because his philosophy was to ask them tough questions and even make them uncomfortable in order to find a solution that would prove his value. One of those questions: Where did clients want their companies to be in five to ten years? From his perspective, Retchkiman says, “There was no point in creating
something that lasted for a couple of years.”

Originally from Regina, Watt attended the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University), and turned his eye to aviation and animation prior to branding. At A.V. Roe, he worked on the design of the Avro Arrow cockpit. As an animator for Warner Brothers in California, he worked on Bugs Bunny. His design was selected as the basis for the Canadian flag and he also designed
the Canadian Pavillion at Expo ’67.

Over the years Don Watt and Associates became Watt Group, and is now Watt International and in 2003, he co- founded DW+Partners, a strategic retail services group. Today, at Watt International, his impact lives on. Retchkiman says that with every new hire and client, she speaks of his legacy. His philosophy is incorporated into her work, and that of the company. “He designed with business in mind, which is now part of our DNA,” she says.

Watt’s way of thinking is easy to take for granted, now that it’s common practice within the industry. All the more reason to ensure recognition with a posthumous Hall of Fame honour, says Mykolyn:
“Today, we can see Watt’s genius through the lens of history.”