CARE Canada names Intents & Purposes as Creative Agency of Record

CARE Canada has selected Intents & Purposes as its Creative Agency of Record following a national search. Beginning in 2026, the partnership will focus on evolving CARE Canada’s brand, including a brand refresh, identity strategy, and ongoing creative support.

Led by founder and Principal Creative Director Kelly Small, with strategic leadership from Tina Fernandez, Intents & Purposes brings a senior, purpose-driven approach grounded in strategic insight, ethical rigour, and craft-forward creative. The work will support CARE Canada in strengthening its connection with audiences across the country and expanding its impact.

“CARE’s work supporting women and communities around the world to build a more just and equal future is some of the most important work happening today,” says Kelly Small. “We’re honoured to partner with the CARE Canada team at this pivotal moment, evolving the brand to deepen connection, strengthen relevance, and expand impact across Canada.”

As a leading Canadian humanitarian organization, CARE Canada is committed to advancing the leadership, rights, and economic empowerment of women and girls globally. This partnership reflects a shared commitment to ethical, accurate storytelling that centres lived experience.

“Ethical storytelling is not just about sharing a story. It’s about ensuring the voices of participants are heard accurately, first-hand, and without bias,” says Rebecca Davies, Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer at CARE Canada. “By highlighting real lived experiences, we can connect people through shared struggle, shared joy, and the stories shaping our collective future.”

Work will begin rolling out across 2026 and 2027.

Supporting What Comes Next: RGD Trailblazer Award

We’re so proud to sponsor the RGD Trailblazer Award this year.

The award recognizes emerging designers who are not just making strong work, but reshaping what design can be. Think: new voices, new perspectives, new ways of thinking about impact, responsibility, and craft.

That really matters.

We can all agree that the future of design will not be defined by aesthetics alone. It’ll be shaped by who is included, whose voices are heard, and how thoughtfully we navigate the responsibility that comes with creative influence.

At I&P we don’t see ethical creative as niche. It’s the direction the industry is moving in. We see it year over year that the designers pushing that forward are often early in their careers, asking better questions, challenging assumptions, and expanding what’s possible.

Supporting the Trailblazer Award is one way to invest in the future we want to see.

We’re looking forward to seeing the work, the thinking, and the people shaping what comes next.

Inclusive Design: A Guide for Marketers

Let’s get real. Inclusive design is often mistaken for a checklist. Add alt text. Increase contrast. Use more diverse imagery.

That’s a start.
It’s not the work.

At its core, inclusive design is about recognizing the full range of human difference and designing with that complexity in mind. It considers ability, language, culture, gender, age, and lived experience not as edge cases, but as a starting point. As the Inclusive Design Research Centre defines it, inclusive design works best when it addresses the needs of people at the margins, because those solutions tend to benefit everyone.

For marketers, this shifts the question. Not “How do we reach more people?” but “Who are we unintentionally excluding, and why?”

Every creative decision either lowers a barrier or reinforces one.

Accessibility is the baseline. Inclusion is the ambition.

Accessibility makes sure people can access and navigate your content. It is essential, and in many cases, required. Here in Canada, accessibility standards continue to evolve through legislation like the Accessible Canada Act, reinforcing that access is not optional.

But accessible does not automatically mean inclusive.

A campaign can meet every guideline and still miss people. Still feel like it wasn’t made for them. Still exclude through tone, imagery, assumptions, or perspective.

Inclusive design goes further. It brings together accessibility, usability, and participation. It asks who is in the room when decisions are made, and who isn’t. Organizations like EY and Nielsen Norman Group point to inclusive design as a driver of better innovation and broader reach, not just a compliance exercise.

As The Conscious Creative puts it:
Ethical creative isn’t just about avoiding harm. It’s about taking responsibility for impact.

Design is never neutral

Creative work is often framed as neutral, but that’s factually untrue.

Design encodes values. It signals who belongs. It shapes what is visible, what is simplified, and what is left out.

Inclusive design starts with the simple truth that exclusion is often designed in.

Sometimes through oversight. Sometimes through speed. Sometimes through assumptions about who the audience is.

The work is to interrupt that and ask better questions earlier, challenge who the default audience or user really is, and to design with people, not just for them.

Research from organizations like Microsoft and the Inclusive Design Research Centre consistently shows that solutions built with human differences in mind perform better across the board. They are more resilient, more adaptable, and more effective.

What this looks like in practice

For marketers and creatives, inclusive design is, ideally, not a tactic. It is an ongoing practice and a way of working. Here’s what it can look like:

Start with exclusion, not audience segments
Look for friction. Who might struggle to access, understand, or feel represented in this work?

Design with, not for
Involve people with lived experience early and throughout the process. Not as validation at the end, but as contributors to the work itself.

Move beyond representation
Sure, diversity in imagery matters. But inclusion also lives in language, tone, power, and perspective. Who is speaking? Who is being spoken about?

Build flexibility, not one “perfect” solution
Truth is, there is no single design that works for everyone. Inclusive design creates multiple ways to engage and participate.

Treat it as a practice
Inclusive design is iterative. It evolves as understanding deepens and contexts change.

Why it matters now

Audiences are paying attention, friends. They know when something feels extractive, performative, or incomplete.

And they know when it doesn’t.

Inclusive design is not about being everything to everyone. It is about being intentional. Making choices that expand access, deepen relevance, and build trust.

Or, more simply:
Creative with a conscience is not softer. It’s actually sharper.

The goal is not just to reach people.

It is to make sure they can actually see themselves in the work.