Royal Opera House Design boards

Responsive Brief: Encourage culturally engaged young people to experience ballet for the first time.

Based on the big human themes: Life, Love, Death, Loss, Passion, Joy, Anger and Humour create a narrative based campaign that relates to everyday life.

Concept : Communicating the contemporary and artistic nature of the ballet through abstract illustrations.

At the heart of this concept was the need to break away from the negative preconceptions of ballet. To execute this in an innovative format focusing on the production and behind the scenes to communicate how ballet is more than just a dance. Informing culturally engaged young people on basic movements and principles of ballet increases their understanding on the contemporary art-form and its relevance to them.

Royal Opera House YCN

Studio Brief 02

Highlight the beauty of the Art form bringing together the world of ballet, world class composers, conductors, dancers, writers, artists, technicians, craftsmen, and administrators. As well as the iconic theatre.

Samuel Harpin

Responsive Research In our group from early on we discussed how using animation would be an great way of engaging the younger target audience, due to the popularity in video content online millenials seem interact with video content above all, as well as being about to be shared across social media platforms. Furthermore the fluid nature of the ballets movement would cohenside with an animated solution.

As an animation was going to form a large part of the project further research into the discipline was needed. The Yellow Submarine’s bright and bold use of colour as well as fluid and flamboyant movement highlighted the expressive nature of dance.

Royal Opera House YCN

Studio Brief 02

The avant garde ballet’s of the 20th century has played a major part in influencing the projects imagery, the playful and experimental costumes reconnect an element of fun that was missing in the art form.

The titles work of the documentary series ‘How We Got To Now’ was highlighted because of its professionalism and use of many mediums. This showed the level of quality that was needed in projects animation.

Samuel Harpin

Responsive To ensure all basis were covered each member of the group came up with two narratives for the project to be based around. After much discussion and feedback it became clear that the work should look at highlighting the ballet as being more than just a dance, the production, effort and dedication of the dancers as well as behind the scenes work that goes into putting on a ballet.

The imagery style communicates the artistic nature of ballet through abstract illustrations. If done successfully this would normalise ballet and make it less threatening to our audience.

Studio Brief 02

Each frame of the animation was planned, looking at highlighting the various parts of ballet that are overlooked, the staff at the theatre, the conductor and orchestra, the work behind the scenes. Keeping with this playful style to give an alternative view of the art form.

Samuel Harpin

Royal Opera House YCN

The naivety and friendly aesthetics was in part informed by the work of Ed Cheverton promoting the Alexander Calder exhibition at the Tate, the bright use of colour and simple ruff lines engages a younger audience without being too serious.

Responsive Picking a colour pallet from the book ‘A dictionary of colour combinations’ ensured all the designs were cohesive and each colour would work alongside one another.

These colours also work tremendously with the gauche paint for the illustrations and animations, the flat and chalky paint allows these bold tones to be as vibrant as possible.

As instructed by the illustrator in the group the frames were all hand painted, this would give a more tactile and personal aesthetic that would further engage the target audience.

Studio Brief 02

Samuel Harpin

Royal Opera House YCN

The frames for the animation were double checked by the animator in the group, this meant the transitions were to a high standard and the overall finish would not be compromised.

Responsive In formed by further feedback on the project so far we decided to look at creating some limited edition cards that would give an insight into the most common positions in ballet, this would further educate the young audience and could be accompanied by dynamic illustrations of each of the positions.

Therefore a series of 10 illustrations were planned that related to the fundamentals of ballet e.g. Pirouette, Écarté.. These 10 illustrations would also form a series of ten posters promoting the Royal Ballet.

Studio Brief 02

Once the frames of the animation were finalised the type needed to be planned, this would give the reader further information on the content couldn’t take away from the animations intriguing imagery. The book How it is... by Nicolas Burrows used a visual poetry style that communicated the information effectively in a creative way but too nothing away from the quality of the prints, this in turn informed the application of our own typography.

Samuel Harpin

Royal Opera House YCN

The backs of the cards have been designed to be clear, relate to the colour scheme but not take to much away from the quality illustrations on the other side. The project guidelines outlined the typefaces that were to be used as well as the general hierarchy of information, the logos needed to be clear and readable at all times.

Responsive As there was going to be a series of 10 cards it seemed appropriate to create some high quality packaging. This meant a large amount of testing of how the packaging would be put together.

As the size of the packaging was relatively small these large extended tabs ensured that the packaging wouldn’t be too flimsy.

The paper stock was suggested by the digital print technicians as it retained its image quality, could be easily scored and folded and didn’t crack in this process.

The design kept the same simplicity that allowed the illustrations to be at the forefront as well as complying to the Royal Opera House guidelines in typeface and communication.

Studio Brief 02

Overall the packaging has been designed to add a further range of formats to display the campaign, translating across digital, print and product design.

Samuel Harpin

Royal Opera House YCN

Extending the images across the full width of the packaging further emphasised the illustrations qualities.

Responsive

Studio Brief 02

Royal Opera House YCN

The posters have been designed to complement the illustrations in a contemporary way with an educational undertone running through the project. Inform by the brand guidelines Gotham is the primary typeface with Times New Roman for the copy, the placement of typography along with the colour choice ensures the illustration is at the forefront but the context clear, overall this type alongside image communicates the information in a intellectual manor.

These posters along with the cards would be available from the gift shop as a way to distribute our visual identity and further inspire a younger audience to experience ballet for the first time.

Samuel Harpin

Responsive The illustrative style of the animation immerses the audience in a playful and unique nature, to promote and highlighting full range of elements that make up the ballet.

The music, imagery and sound-effects communicate the sensory experience and highlight the theatre’s production components.

The flowing promotional video is subtitle for social media distribution aimed at the target audience of culturally engaged young people.

Studio Brief 02

Royal Opera House YCN

Samuel Harpin

Responsive Photographing the full collateral of the project to a professional standard is fundamental in the final communication displayed in submission boards.

Studio Brief 02

Royal Opera House YCN

Samuel Harpin