Bram Timmer
Updated: 05/06/22
Dutch & Canadian creative director, strategic thinker and producer with over 20 years of experience in the digital and integrated brand experience space.
What started as a career in development & design, turned to illustration, animation and story development during the golden years of Flash. At the beginning, Timmer worked at: White Iron, on web productions for the television shows Corner Gas and Taking It Off; Blatant (Absorb Software); and got a taste for remote work with Webtek since 2001.
The following six years spent between Vancouver and Toronto, focused on design and art direction under the pseudonym ‘Beside’, working on digital and print productions for an international list of clients. During this time, Timmer also provided creative direction and production design for festivals run by FITC in Toronto, New York City, Seoul, Hollywood, Chicago, and helped the annual festival find its feet in his homeland’s Amsterdam.
Over the span of those early years, Timmer founded, operated, advised, consulted and contributed to a large range of startups and products.
For four years afterwards, Timmer dived into photography and video production under the name ‘Aside’, shooting fashion, music, fitness and lifestyle content for magazines and model portfolios. He served as the photography manager for Banff World Media Festival where he led teams to capture every detail of the event, from red carpets to award shows, television executive luncheons and dinners to presentations.
Timmer has had the privilege of photographing celebrities including Ricky Gervais, William Shatner, Eric McCormack, Lisa Kudrow, Ed Asner, Judd Apatow, Juliette Lewis, Felicia Day, Jason Priestley, David Suzuki, Adam Beach, Caroline Rhea, Kenny Hotz, Howie Mandel, Jeremy Hotz, and Mike Holmes. At this time, Timmer also led a video team to document the Teenage Paparazzo Experience North American Tour with Adrian Grenier.
The passion for delivering quality content for large scale audiences never subsided.
In 2012, Timmer founded the creative production studio Wild Forest as an artistic outlet in Calgary and joined KMV Digital as a design partner, commuting to New York City frequently to consult on creative and brand strategies for more than a dozen B2B and B2C firms and agencies.
Over the years, he has crafted many campaigns for the National Basketball Association as well as for the National Football League, Canadian Football League, Citi, Apple, Unilever, Nivea, Ricoh, Swell, Yale University, Waterworks, National Film Board of Canada, US State Department, New York City Mayor’s Office, and more. He also created public art & experiential installations for the Calgary Film Centre, City of Calgary and TD Canada Trust.
In 2014, Timmer founded the Council of Artists and Multimedia Professionals (CAMP) to celebrate the art and technology of creative storytelling. After nearly a decade of successfully producing its annual festivals, talks, granting streams and workshops, in 2017 he set out to tackle a new challenge and produce the first episodes of its Summit roundtable talk-show.
In late 2018, Timmer shifted Wild Forest’s primary focus toward narrative content. In 2021, he became an alumni of the National Screen Institute’s (NSI) Business for Producers program and was mentored by Seven24 Films’ Jessalyn Dennis.
In 2021, CAMP was acquired by FITC. In 2022, the merger was official. Shortly thereafter, Timmer peacefully transitioned out of his partner position with the New York City-based digital consulting agency, KMV.
Timmer has served as Vice President of Digital Alberta where he helped breathe new life into the organization, develop its annual awardshow and secure both government and private funding. He has advised Canada’s provincial and federal governments in the structuring of industry grants; supported Telus in its immersive story-driven content and grant development as both advisor and mentor; is an ambassador and advisor to FITC; sits on advisory councils for Alberta University of the Arts, Lethbridge College, and Bow Valley College; and is a member of the Producers Guild of America and the Canadian Media Production Association.
Timmer was the former chief editor and co-founder of Digital Softbox Magazine, serving audiences with photographer interviews, gear and work. Prior to that, Timmer was a founding member of Digital Abstracts and contributing member to Ventilate, two highly notable and inspiring design & motion graphic portals of their time.
Over the span of two decades, Timmer has held various speaking & jury engagements, and has garnered a few industry awards.
Timmer’s artistic works have exhibited at art galleries in London, Southampton, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, and Lethbridge, with features and interviews in publications, radio, and television that span the globe.
Growing up next door to the theme park Efteling–exhibiting rides and tales of dragons, ghosts, knights, gnomes, fairies and fairy tales in a land of make believe–has sparked a lifelong interest and pursuit in the development of stories through creative form.
“Stay tuned.”