History

We opened our doors in 1986 as a 2-man operation. Through the years the constant in our company has been the desire to work collaboratively with our clients. Our staff has always supported this philosophy and continues this today.

A few highlights have been:

Studio 1
Downtown Edmonton in a basement office below what is now Commerce Place. It was a great place to cut our creative teeth, and we hosted some amazing client and colleague soirées (brick walls work well to muffle loud parties!).

Studio 2
Moving up - real windows! We relocated to Edmonton’s South Side to a 6th floor office in a modern office tower. Great views of Edmonton’s downtown and a few steps forward in the world of design.

Studio 3
Welcome to Old Strathcona. Our first of 3 locations in Edmonton’s Old Strathcona area. Our location in a small office building behind the Keg Restaurant was home for 3 years. We grew and expanded our operation from this location before outgrowing the space in 1991.

Studio 4
In 1992 we purchased our first historic house. It was built in 1912 and was full of character and charm. It served us well as a creative environment and we enjoyed a surge of growth and new clients in this location. As we began to outgrow the space good fortune provided us with an opportunity to purchase a larger property within ½ block of the studio.

Studio 5
Historic Jackson House. This was a great move for us. We renovated part of the main floor of our 2 ¼ story classic brick home to restore some of the character elements that had been removed by previous owners. Things really took off for us there and we built a much stronger client base. We also welcomed Kizmet Communications to our family, a strategic Communications and Marketing firm that works together with Backstreet to provide a more extensive base of services for our clients. We moved more heavily into web and multimedia design as well as web site usability testing while maintaining our core creative design focus.

Studio 6
After calling Old Strathcona home for the past 15 years it was time to try something new. In 2006 three of the owners of Backstreet and Kizmet along with another associate purchased a 9,000 sq ft building near Edmonton’s 124th St. business area. Our goal was to renovate the bulk of the top floor of this two-story building and create a new open concept studio area to house Backstreet Communications, Kizmet Communications and other associated companies that compliment our own. We’ve faced many challenges with this and did a lot of the work on it ourselves but the results have been worth it. Our new space has great vibes and lots of character.