RE: Experience Design
Leveling up experiential graphics for SCCA’s 2023 graduate celebration.
Experience Design | Environmental Graphics | Sign Production
Collaborator: Sharon Blyth-Moss
Roles: Visual Designer | Art Director | Sculptor
Tools: Illustrator | Power Tools | Mixed Media
Timeframe: 3 months (April – June 2023)
Overview
Project Goal
Create a stunning place-making sculpture for the 2023 SCCA graduate Portshowlio celebration and make the space look more like a cool party than an institution.
The location is a brutalist institutional building in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Process
Brand Concept & Colors
RE: was the theme of our class Portshowlio celebration. We’d centered on concepts of renewal, re-education, and re-generation, and we wanted to showcase the many different designers, photographers, and videographers who came out of the program. The brand colors are a play on primary colors that can become any color in the rainbow.
Ideation
I’m trained as an artist and have a decade of experience dressing sets and installing art shows. I imagined people might like human scale sculptural letterforms to pose with for pictures with at the event. I used the branding team’s logo and sketched a concept to pitch to the exhibition team.
The RE: theme logo was custom lettered by Phillip Patterson.
I sketched the logo in 3-D to show what it could look like at human scale.
Production
Sharon and I mocked up two of each letterform in Illustrator and projected them onto 4’ x 8’ pieces of lightweight plywood. We taped (to prevent splintering), then traced and cut out the letters with a jigsaw, and refined them with an orbital sander. We primed and painted each letter in RE: red, then attached the fronts and backs of the letters with 1” x 10” planks for consistent width and stability.
Once painted, we gaffed the interior of the letters with foamcore and paper to give them a sleek appearance and make the gelled lights pop. We fitted the borders of each interior side with adhesive LED strip lights
Key Takeaways
What I Learned
It’s important to take the time to listen to colleagues’ ideas because it could be brilliant and save time.
When you think big and work as a team, you can have a major positive influence on the vibe of a space.
Industrial brutalist spaces can be transformed by light, sound, and sculpture.