The Accidental Illustrator

In 1996, in the east village of Manhattan, there was a fab restaurant called Global 33. The theme was ‘airline chic’, and the decor evoked a business class lounge at, say, the Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport in Rio de Janeiro, but when the airport was called simply Galeão, say in the 60’s (if, of course, there had been business class in the 60’s). Colorola’s Stuart Patterson, being something of an airline fetishist, naturally fell in love with the place, and proposed creating some illustrations for the 33 back-lit display mountings that lined one wall of the restaurant. He had been playing around with some very rudimentary vector illustrations of airline interiors, and when he showed the owners of the place, they were convinced, and an installation was produced in the fall of 1996.

Enter Tyler Brûlé, at the time a former BBC journalist scrambling to put together a new magazine in London called Wallpaper*. He happened to dine at Global 33 while Stuart’s show was up and determined to commission the illustrator for his upcoming publication. The problem was that Stuart really wasn’t an illustrator, he was a graphic designer that played around a bit with Freehand.  Furthermore, he’d split New York, and was couch-surfing back home in San Francisco. This is just before the advent of the ‘portable mobile phone device’, and internet service was still a bit slapdash, so Stuart was difficult to track down (he’d actually gone to Mexico City for a couple of months, to make matters worse). Then Tyler picked up a copy of the, at-the-time-pretty-much-local magazine, Surface*, no doubt concerned about their protruding asterisk.

This was when Stuart was doing the graphics for the Sound Factories of New York and San Francisco, and in this capacity, had created a Sound Factory ad for the back cover of Surface*. Tyler, ever the vigilant, recognized the work as Stuart’s, and promptly contacted Sound Factory.

Stuart practically learned the illustration trade traytabling his PowerBook 5300 on the way to Toronto to work on the inaugural issue of Wallpaper*. The naive line and color of his earlier work contributed to the approachable, human quality of the early Wallpaper* editorial, and was an integral part of the Wallpaper*’look’ that has influenced the publishing industry and popular aesthetics to this day.

Drawing a Crowd

Like many forms of art and entertainment, theater in Los Angeles, though often eclipsed by the movie industry, is a competitive enterprise. With so many diversions, from the beaches to the mountains (and so many freeways in between), attracting crowds to live performances that don’t typically feature Hollywood megastars or the Lakers is a challenge.  We decided to apply some of the same strategies that have proven so successful in attracting thousands of Southern Californians to electronic music events and festivals. Creating unique, eye-catching illustrations, we were able to initiate a narrative, and additionally, integrate the theme into the overall seasonal collateral. In two seasons, we’ve managed to contribute to a dramatic increase in overall attendance by supplementing the extraordinary stage performances with original illustrated posters, giving each production a definitive look, and a thorough marketing strategy. The rest, as they say, is showbiz.

Pop Wars

As technology and games continue to proliferate the virtual firmament, greater threats to video game security and competitive frameworks are an inexorable result. The multi-billion dollar industry, one of the fastest growing in the world, is still quite volatile, and the need for tightened security in all sectors, at all development stages is vital.  Galactic Mantis, a games security company in Viet Nam, is at the forefront of gaming security technology.  Inspired by the mid-century graphics of Swiss chemical company, Geigy, Colorola combined classic pharmaceutical package design with a nefarious nod to astro-infestation to create a unique brand system that is one part Halliburton, one part Warhol.

Blue on Blue

The monochromatic scenes of a young, hip, shop-happy ingenue and her equally consuming friends created an effective and easily recognizable brand image for this successful e-commerce website. Founded in 1998, Bluefly.com is one of the few surviving fashion websites from the dot com boom. It’s a success story with many vital components, including its initial illustrated branding program, styled and illustrated by Colorola’s Stuart Patterson

The (Un)Covers

They now seem like relics from a different time (and not just because of their slightly 70’s bent).  The 90’s literally were the end of an era, though at the time we simply thought of them as the un-80’s, when sensuality, color, sex, good vibes and good highs all seemed to convene on the dance floor.  House music reached its peak then (though some argue that the proverbial beat goes on), and from San Francisco to London, Ibiza to Tokyo, the soundtrack invariably included the voluptuous, soul drenched sounds of Naked Music.  From its very first release, Stuart Patterson created the starkly nude yet innocuous covers that seduced a million listeners into the ‘Nude Dimension.’

They Might be Giant

Since January 1st, 2000, Giant has been producing some of the largest  New Year’s Eve parties in the world. They also produce a weekly Saturday night dance club in Hollywood (currently installed at the gigantic venue, Avalon) and various other large-scale events in Las Vegas, San Diego, Newport Beach, and Miami. They are the West Coast exemplar of mainstream electronic dance music (for the 21-35 year-old crowd), and Colorola has defined their look from the beginning.  Featuring some of the highest grossing entertainers in the world like Tiesto, David Guetta, or Armin Van Burin, the Giant brand is highly market-driven. And while the dj names are important (and costly, earning $40,000 to $100,000 for a few hours of music mixing), Giant also relies on high-visibility campaigns to fortify the brand.  Much of our effort has been to maintain a balance between brand continuity and the need to revamp the brand for an audience that is as fickle as it is fun.  Though Giant’s entertainment offering is ostensibly mainstream, the dance crowd is subject to shift its preferences with little notice.  In order to keep Giant relevant for early adopters, our attempt has been to push the envelope with the visual marketing, remaining highly visible, but without the patina of a hard sell.

The competition for this demographic is fierce.  Another festival, rave or nightclub with equally attractive programming can potentially steal the numbers with one crowd-pleasing booking.  So we’ve worked hard to build a residual audience that is as loyal to the Giant brand as they are to the personalities that take to the decks.   We’re also competing against other diversions:  agressive campaigns from video games, to sports, to cinema dot the vast entertainment landscape that is Southern California, and we’ve managed, through innovation and wit, to keep Giant front and center. The Giant crowd is a perfect microcosm of today’s young American, and we’ve certainly benefited from our privileged access to this dynamic, ever-changing market.

Commie Get It

While the Walt Disney Concert Hall has a most adept in house art department that creates perfectly proficient collateral for the LA Phil and friends, the marketing team decided to think out of the box when promoting an experimental concert, Pravda, that featured a diverse roster of contemporary musicians and djs interpreting the music of Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, and with Dvotchka, Russian folk music from the Stalinist era, demonstrating the profound depth of the musical invention and expression that prevailed in spite of (some might argue because of) the sweeping oppression that has defined the Stalinist regime.

The program featured several well-known figures from the indie/dance/hip-hop scenes like Penut Butter Wolf, Amon Tobin, Cut Chemist, DJ Spooky and Dublab Soundsystem. So the object was to introduce such esoteric programming to an audience attuned more to raves than Ravel. With our experience attracting huge crowds to the largest dance music events in Southern California, we were commissioned to help attract the same crowd to LA’s most consecrated classical venue. Taking cues from Soviet propaganda posters of the 20’s and 30’s, we created original illustrations and State-style graphics to produce a marketing campaign for print. With a bit of irony and contemporary references we avoided the pastiche of a mere caricature, and devised a look that was as fresh as it was Bolshevik.

We created a campaign inspired by Soviet propaganda posters that featured a fiery red illustration of the acclaimed Frank Gehry designed music hall. This experience helped us to realize that we have a particular knack for designing for public arts institutions, and ultimately led to our creative collaboration with the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

If Hollywood is the world’s entertainment capital, then Avalon is the Royal Palace. Formally the sound stage for Jerry Lewis’ live television broadcasts, the extraordinarily well-preserved landmark near Hollywood and Vine faces the Capital Records building, and is the location of choice for many of the world’s top performers.  The imposing Spanish Empire structure functions as a live venue for sellout performances, and during late night weekends, transforms into one of the most popular night clubs on the West Coast.

Avaland, the venue’s flagship production, has been a Saturday night staple in Hollywood for over 5 years, and Colorola has created the brand ID as well as a large portion of its printed collateral.  The owners are aware of the historical significance of the theater, and have entrusted Colorola to produce original art and marketing material that demonstrates its uniqueness and quality.  Taking our cues from mid-century cinema and Hollywood’s heritage of the 60’s and 70’s hedonism, we have created a brand narrative for the club that could visably constitute the key art and packaging for a major motion picture release.

Carolina by Carolina Herrera

Colorola created the packaging and an individual gift package for the introduction of Carolina, a woman’s fragrance by Carolina Herrera.  Consistent with the delicate bouquet of the fragrance, we produced a series of subtle, pastel product renderings for the collateral, as well as a custom title script for use in the opulent print brochure, reproduced for the international buyers’ market in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.

Four Wheels

Stuart Patterson created a series of vintage style illustrations evocative of mid-century Jamaica to be used in catalogs, point of sale, and promotion.

Solar’s 30th Anniversary Series

Stuart Patterson was commissioned to design and illustrate special commemorative CDs for the 30th anniversary of the legendary LA Soul label, Solar.  For the ‘Ultimate Collection,’ Stuart created illustrated packaging for classic recording artists, Shalimar, Midnight Star, and Lakeside.

Bottle Service

Working with British Esquire, Stuart Patterson illustrated several lifestyle images for the Moet et Chandon UK Bar Guide.