Brief
The aim of this project was to develop an explicit understanding of how visual rhetoric can evolve across the multiple platforms of a transmedia campaign.
The scenario:
Wellington’s, Bats theatre are celebrating their 30th anniversary and to commemorate the occasion are putting together a theatrical season based on the songs of musician, Warren Maxwell. They don’t have a massive budget for the promotional material and have approached you about creative sponsorship. Their brief is as follows.
- They need a title for the theatrical season that provides continuity both conceptually and visually.
- They require a transmedia campaign (including posters, website and some form of motion graphics/animation) that enables deeper audience connection across multiple touchpoints and time-frames.
- Because the plays are in varying stages of casting/production the promotional material requires a rhetorical approach, not one that relies on ‘stage shots’.
- The visual system must provide continuity across the season while retaining the flexibility required to communicate the specific context of each production.
This was a collaborative project with Francesca Gould.
For our season ‘Tide’, we aimed for a simple but fun graphic style, keeping the website and poster a little more sophisticated. Our journey map begins at the poster, followed by the website which holds the animations. We chose to make three animations, positioned on the ‘what’s on’ page, alongside information about each play. Our aim for this was to give the viewer a sense of the experience/feeling each play will entail.
We used a limited and cohesive colour scheme across all media, and for visuals we focused on the feeling each song provokes, i.e. loud and energetic, smooth and calming, and light and energetic. The flowing imagery through our project represents the ups and downs, movement, and constant changes of life.
In our theatrical season, titled 'Tide', our primary objective was to cultivate a graphic style that is both uncomplicated and engaging, while concurrently imbuing the website and poster with an air of sophistication. To achieve this, we devised a journey map, beginning with the poster, followed by the website, which serves as the focal point for our animated content. Deliberately, we opted to create three distinct animations, positioning them within the 'what's on' page, in conjunction with detailed information pertaining to each theatrical production. Our intention behind this decision was to provide the audience with a perceptible sense of the experiential and emotional dimensions encapsulated within each play.
In order to foster visual coherence and unity across all media platforms, we adhered to a deliberately restricted and harmonised colour palette. Furthermore, in terms of visual aesthetics, our emphasis was placed upon capturing the particular sensations evoked by the musical compositions associated with each production, i.e. loud and energetic, smooth and calming, and light and energetic. The flowing imagery interwoven throughout our media serves as a metaphorical representation of the ups and downs, movement, and constant changes of life, which inspired our subheading “Through the ebbs and flows of life”.
