A bespoke mixed media design created specifically for a roadshow event campaign. The original application of the design was graphics for a custom built truck to host the events. The design will also be used across other mediums as the ‘hero’ graphic for the campaign – used on the website, emails and other promotional material.
The client was seeking something out of the ordinary, removed from the cliche designs often found on vehicles, to capture the theme of ‘imagination’. After working through a number of different styles and directions, a mixed media approach was used. The combination of different artistic elements and methods allowed for the exploration of creativity to help create the idea of ‘imagination’.
The final design features a combination of photography, watercolour, and textile patterns – a modified stock photo of a mountain range creates balance, contrast and depth; a unique hand-painted water colour piece for the sky lends a dreamlike feel to the overall image; textile patterns used over the hot air balloons provide a surrealistic element; a custom typography element was also created to expand the use of water colour through to type.
A major challenge was to create a final design spec to over 6 meters long. Much time was spent sourcing an appropriate stock image of the mountain range which would scale effectively. The water colour element was hand painted on several sheets of A3 art paper to give a genuine water colour effect. These were then scanned in and merged together to create the landscape layout to match the required art board. Each element was then combined into Photoshop and after much editing, the final composition was decided upon.
The final challenge was to wrap the design around each panel (4 sides) of the vehicle. The main graphic was reversed for the other side panel, and a new custom graphic was created for the back and front panels – each a highly modified version of the main graphic.
Thanks to the talented Natalia Dowse for the hand painted water colour illustration, mixed media advice, and generally great design collaboration.
