Once and a while a real opportunity comes up to do something different. I was asked by Protiviti, a financial company that help startups go public, to provide visuals for the rebranding of their 'guide to going public'. This could easily have been a run of the mill corporate job, but the executives involved had a daring vision. They were open to a complete change from the previous guide which was nicely done, but used stock photos that didn't leave an impression.
For companies that want to go public, this guide is a must read and every word is important. The text is dense and is pure gold to the readers. The challenge was to also make the visuals pop and memorable. During an initial meeting I presented every possible style in photography, mixed media as well as illustration. The team quickly went down a path of using illustrations that had a retro feel, even a touch of comic book style. It needed to feel hand painted and not digitally perfect. Something that might be used in an editorial piece in a magazine. Several meetings were spent on narrowing down the style and especially the color scheme. Since, it was requested from the beginning that only the six corporate brand colors would be used. This was something that was not a constraint but an opportunity to do something more unique.
Another really fresh idea from the team was that they embraced the fact that the process of going public is rather complicated and abstract and to use that in the illustrations' narrative. The concepts became surreal, which was a lot of fun to do and was only possible because the clients had the guts to go for it. Lots of thumbnails were generated, then a sample illustration was put together and once all the notes were incorporated, we went ahead and made nine illustrations that told the story of 'going public'.
This was one of the best experiences and creatively most rewarding jobs I have done and it is all thanks to a team of openminded people who were not afraid to take risks.
