The brief was to make engaging visuals for a trail around the Great Northern's grand leisure and retail space in the city centre, also the home of Grit Studio. The client referenced some of my satirical cartoons (which are dotted around the art studio and other places), and I proposed some ideas, creating illustrations of winter-themed animals, poems, design and typography for 'The Great Northern Winter Trail'.
Each poster illustration has it's own humorous poem to go along with it. The Great Northern building is home to many different kinds of businesses, from bakeries to letting agents and the poems allude to some of these without naming any specifically, so no one feels 'seen', teased or left out.
Then taking it one step further I added a QR code to a web page where visitors can see silhouettes of each animal they're looking for. Helpful clues that don't show everything, to maintain the incentive to find them all.
There are also instructions on a small 'collect the letters' challenge for visitors to download an artwork montage of all the Winter Trail as a mobile phone or desktop wallpaper. A fun value ad that didn't take much time to implement.
The Winter Trail was a joy of a project with a lot of creative freedom to it. One practical aspect is that poster illustrations are a relatively affordable way to create engagement.
Mine isn't the only art on display in the building with some of the other studio creatives having work on display there. If you're passing through Manchester come and check it out.
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