Jack Obrien, then department head hired Ihor on a consultancy basis, to promote various department projects. Word on campus spread and Ihor found himself creating design projects for the entire university.

This contract work was the beginning of Studio 123. Located in the heart of Old Montreal, some notable events for Ihor included painting commissions, graphic design and marketing projects for the Record Industry including A&M Records, Polygram, Mercury and London and other local companies.

Together with friend JM Heimrath, Ihor put together the Century of Sound concept, which was the companion publication promoting the recording industry's 100 years of recorded sound, which was held at Toronto's Canadian National Exhibition.

Seizing an opportunity to promote an unknown talented artist, Ihor used his sense of promotion and design to develop a recording package. The theme was Rejection. It was punk. The timing was perfect and the recording artist was Stanley Frank

Through Polygram world wide offices,Ihor successfully obtained the artist a 28 country release for the new artist.

It was an unheard of achievement in the Canadian Recording industry at the time. As Fate would have it, on the day of a 28 country release, the record was stopped by a greedy and somewhat naive graduate lawyer, who had no idea about the tenuous nature of pop stardom. Without question this single stupid act on the part of the lawyer, ended not only the recording artist's career, but also the factious manager Ihor Fu Fangio