Blue Cat Design’s founder, Christine Collie Rowland, has designed everything from Web sites to television animated program openings and news graphics to books, magazines, packaging, retail advertising and houses.

Christine had 20 years of design, marketing, and multimedia experience including seven years spent in broadcast design, both at the regional level at Global Television Network and the national network level as Art Director at CTV (Canadian Television Network) before founding Blue Cat Design.

As owner and president of a book publishing company in the mid-80’s, she was a leader in using Macintosh desktop technology. She has continued to be an innovator and early adaptor of new technologies. In February 1996, Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe & Mail, in a feature profile article referred to Christine as a “Web pioneer” and to her firm as “the grand-daddy of Canada’s burgeoning Web site design business”.

Since 1995, Blue Cat Design has produced more than 300 Web sites for a diverse international clientele in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The editors of the Internet’s premier directory, Looksmart, included Blue Cat Design as one of only 20 firms listed in their “The World’s Best Web Designers” category.

Christine’s continued interest and expertise in search engine marketing and optimization has resulted in a loyal client base whose sites have enjoyed long-term high rankings in search engines. She often speaks and lectures on internet marketing, and on search engine and social media marketing in particular.

The government of Ontario recognized Christine’s exporting achievements by awarding her the Ontario Global Trader’s Award for Leadership in Exporting in a gala ceremony in Ottawa in March 1999.

In June 2000, Christine was recognized as a Pioneer in the new media industry by the Canadian New Media Awards.

Christine was both a delegate and a speaker in Canada’s first Team Canada trade mission for Women Entrepreneurs, an historic event which took place in Washington, DC in Nov. 1998. She was one of 150 Canadian women business leaders chosen to participate in the first-ever Canada/U.S.A. Businesswomen’s Trade Summit held in Toronto in May 1999.

She has been a featured speaker at design and new media conferences in North America and Europe, and regularly lectures at schools and colleges. She has taught “Multimedia using Macromedia Director” at Centennial College in Toronto. She has been an active member of Siggraph, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), WEC (Women Entrepreneurs of Canada), CWC (Canadian Women in Communications) and IMAT (Interactive Multimedia Arts & Technologies Association). She also served for three years on the Seneca College Computer Graphics Advisory Board Committee.

She sat on the Board of Directors for the New York-based BDA International (Broadcast Designers Association) from 1993-95. As Chair of their International Committee, she organized the BDA’s first European conference held in London, UK in November 1994 – a sold-out event with attendees from twelve countries.

Christine and Blue Cat Design has been profiled on television and radio, and has been reviewed and featured in The Net magazine (US), NetGuide magazine (US), Marketing magazine (CA), WebWeek magazine (US), Insieme/Together, Los Angeles magazine (US), ComputerWorld magazine (US), US Creative (US) and many newspapers including the Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Hamilton Spectator, Winnipeg Free Press, Victoria Times Colonist, etc.

Christine is also a photographer and published writer. She lives with her husband, author/journalist Wade Rowland, multiple cats, and miscellaneous wildlife, in the countryside just outside Toronto in a blue house she designed and built beside a pond. Their son Simon Rowland lives in Toronto, and their daughter Hilary Rowland in Manhattan.