Visit the Dalí
Project Type:
Out of Home Campaign
Melting in the St. Pete summer heat? Take an air conditioned stroll around
The Dalís Museum's permeant collection, where one of the only things melting is time (and a few things in Dalí's paintings ).
This out-of-home campaign project was created to draw locals and those around the St. Pete to the museums permanent collection.
The Challenge
The Dalí Museum pays year round for a specific billboard off the interstate in St. Petersburg. It's typically used to advertise the upcoming/current rotating exhibit. On occasion, there are extended periods of time between these exhibits, causing these limited time campaigns to run longer than the exhibit itself. The task at hand was to create a single billboard that would bring in visitors to see the Dalí's permanent collection.
I later revisited this project and expanded upon the billboard designs.
The Process
Fig. 0.1
Mood board
This project was created in collaboration with Pedro Goncalves
during the our spring 2021 internship term. Pedro was the marketing intern and I the graphic design intern. He and I were fully in charge of this project, consulting with our managers as needed.
Fig. 0.2
Fig. 0.3
Fig. 0.4
The museum's primary brand color is figure 0.2 In addition, my art director suggested I use the tertiary brand colors (Figures 0.3 and 0.4). These were ultimately phased out during a later project refresh.
Fig. 0.5 Rough draft
My initial designs were expansive and focused very heavily on the iconography and whimsical tone of the brand. These concepts were ultimately too detailed and busy for the billboard specific design.
Fig. 1.1
Fig. 0.6 Version 1
After regrouping and meeting with the art director, I landed on this much simpler design. The attention is now focused on a single Dalí icon at one time. The brand's red was the best choice to play with not only because of its legibility, it's also notoriously an eye catching billboard color. Red will stimulate emotions such as quick decisions and urgency in the viewer, but also excitement. It became a goal of mine to achieve all of those emotions in each iteration throughout the rest of the project.
Fig. 1.3
Fig. 1.2
Fig. 1.4
Expanding further upon the first version, figures 1.1-4 were born. 1.1 is a version that would require an extension and would be the most expensive but also the most impactful. Figure 1.2 became known as the "faux extension" as it imitates the extension within the bounds of the billboard. Figures 1.3 and 1.4 use the same design style but Pedro and I worked on quick and witty Spanish versions. Pedro speaks fluent Spanish and St. Pete has a large Spanish speaking population so we worked especially close on these versions. "Que surrealista" translating roughly to "how surreal" and "¿qué hora es?" translating to "what time is it?".
Fig. 1.6 Final Versions
These remaining billboards were among the melting clock designs Pedro and I presented. We innately presented these them to the Art Director (my boss), the marketing manager (Pedro's boss), the marketing director and the director of visitor experience. It was so well received by them, Pedro and I were asked to return after our internships had ended to present the designs to the Executive Director and the Chief Marketing Officer. They both agreed with our managers that this would become an incredibly successful campaign concept.
That was not the end of the road for this campaign though. In August of 2022, the museum revisited this campaign brought "Time Melts at The Dalí" and "We're Right Under Your Nose" to life. The designs were tweaked slightly by Dunn & Co, a Tampa advertising firm, before they were run but remained very close to the originals.
Figure 4.2 A trolly wrap spotted in Downtown St. Pete
Figure 4.1 Pedro and I with our final design presentation
Figure 4.3 The interstate billboard the concepts were created for
Tools Used
The programs used during this project were Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. The assets used throughout this project were part of The Dalí Museum's photo library.
I first went in to the library of photos the museum granted me access to looking for iconic images. My original concepts are photoshopped elements from Dali's art and a photo of the man himself. After that first attempt, I shifted my focus slightly. Using different versions of the elements I had originally, and only using one at a time. I also focusing my attention to more photos of Dalí himself. Looking for the perfect angle of the shot and the right length of his mustache.
Once the assets had been selected, I brought them into photoshop to cut them out. From there I brought everything into Illustrator. Once in Illustrator, the rest of the design came together quickly. The background continued to stay solid/ flat and simple to further emphasize the icons. The finishing touches came from adding in the drop shadows. They added the right amount of contrast and definition against my uses of
the color white.
The Impact
What started out as a conceptual intern project, turned into the first time I've ever seen my designs in the real world. I learned a signifiant amount about billboard design and best practices during this campaign. My boss, the art director, has created countless billboard designs, she was able to teach me the billboard design standards. Learning the golden rule of 7 words maximum, I kept the copy simple. Through this project I learned I really enjoy writing short form, and specifically witty copy. The other through line of this project was simplicity. Short copy, Big and bold graphics, simple but contrasting colors and the use of drop shadows. I learned a significant amount about elaborating and explaining my design decisions. This was one of my first professional presentations outside of academic settings and it was great to get the hands on experience.
About another year later, I decided to revisit the campaign and elaborate on it. I expanded to other types of out of home campaigns that apply to downtown St. Petersburg. There is a significant amount of bus shelters in the area and the museum is surrounded by lamp posts with banner advertisements on them. I adapted the original billboard designs to fit the formats but ulimately had the same goal: to attract local visitors to the museums permanent collection.
Bus Shelter Poster
Fig. 2.1
Fig. 2.2
Fig. 2.3
Lamp Post Banner
Fig. 3.1
Fig. 3.2
