Month: November 2020

My campaign is surrealist bright artwork which is the opposite to the mundane lives people lead and filled with colour.

In New York, Sarah Grillo designed a brand and campaign for a community event called Revive L. The design included black and white photography with cleverly integrated colourful illustrations in order to create a different world. Sarah stated she photographed the commuters and then illustrated what “they’d rather be doing-drinking a cocktail or eating a taco”. I feel this campaign sends out a good message that everybody has complex and interesting lives beneath what you see and photography doesn’t have to comply with this; it can show what’s beneath the surface even if it’s not real.

The illustrations show a clear contrast by being a total opposite to the background.

The use of colour of black and white contrasted with the bright colourful illustrations which take you into a different world is a great reflection on a campaign that brings peoples dreams into a reality through art. A lot like surrealist art which is often inspired by dreams. The illustrations themselves look very animated and childlike, bringing out that nostalgia of being carefree and the opposite to the mundane contrasted with the illustrations. Surrealism is often a random integration of things which almost make sense but don’t at the same time which I feel is represented through this campaign through the random use of colour and shapes along with the background photo. The people’s positions on the train are shown to almost align with the dreamlike fantasy illustrations. For example

There is a new lease of life through through the campaign as it brightens what people might have thought was a bad day through art. I feel this is important as it brings something magical to peoples lives and sees the excitement in what would be usually seen as uninteresting.  

References:

Fig 1 & 2: http://www.sarahleegrillo.com/revive-l.html#

I decided I wanted to create something especially surreal that told a story like in a dream. I did this by drawing fire and creating the shape of fire coming out of the moon as if it had been caught on fire by the sun. This reflects the surrealist art I’m inspired by as it often doesn’t make sense but can still be connected somehow. I added the shape of stars and dotted them within the fire. This gave the illusion of shooting stars. The use of fire also made sense to me because it was two different worlds colliding as there is no oxygen to fuel fire in space so the pairing of both earth and space helped create a surrealist theme.

I took a really abstract approach with the shape of the fire as I wanted the fire to not look real like the moon but still be recognisable for what it was. I made the shapes a lot bigger in order to make the design the forefront and to keep the colour gradient of the font exposed.

The colour of the fire I wanted to be the normal colours that a fire would have so it was recognisable and also because those colours contrast a lot with the deep purple of the moon. I decided I didn’t want to blend the colours together as much as the moon as I wanted that contrast between the two shapes to be clear. The moon being caught on fire is almost a silly childlike idea you would find in a children’s book or film which is exactly what I wanted to portray as it connects to my inspirations of Disney films. The random idea also links to dreams and surrealist art which is often inspired by dreams.

When adding more colour, I decided I wanted to change the moon to a deep purple in order to make it stand out more. I created my own graphic out of circular shapes and blurred them in order to create the purple moon. I wanted the moons appearance to seem more animated then the sample from my previous logotype as I wanted it to reflect the Disney movie childlike inspirations I had. When surrealism comes in, I feel making the moon such a abstract colour helps get that message across. The fact that it doesn’t look like a real moon but almost a dreamlike version of a moon gives this message of surrealism too.

I created a light purple to dark purple gradient within the moon to give the appearance of shadows which would be casted on the moon. I also created a purple blur around the craters to make them catch people’s eyes. For the font itself I decided I wanted to change the colours to match the gradient of the moon, this I feel helps bring the font together. The first two letters I made a lighter purple then the middle letters I made black to ensure a contrast as they overlap the moon and the last letter, I made a deep blue/purple. The overall added colour I feel helps enhance my surreal dreamlike ideas as the colours pink and purple are not easily found in nature and especially not when you think of the moon. The font “surrealism” is created to look slanted and off balance which reflects the off-balance surreal nature of the moon itself. The colours being blurred and blended into one another really gives the moon the dreamlike appearance. Surrealist art is often said to be inspired from peoples dreams as it is random and out of this world