reopening the Chrysler
The Chrysler Museum of Art closed for renovations soon after I moved to Norfolk and I never made it in before the doors closed. Well, thanks to this project, I got to take a tour while the finishing touches were being put in place. Even in dim lighting and repeated fire alarm testing I was in awe. The collections are beautiful and inspiring. The pressure was on to do justice to this package.
My design director had been wanting me to do a charcoal/pencil rendering and this was a good time for it. Each of the floors were given to us in vector form by the museum. I printed them and traced over them with help from a light box and started shading. I didn't test my luck with charcoal. Soft pencil did the trick. The process took me about 2.5 to 3 shifts. There were so many small rooms and the shading was done in about 4 layers. It definitely gave paper quilling (you can see the "Best of the Best" cover in the illustration tab) a run for it's money as far as tediousness goes.
Once they were drawn I had to figure out how to connect the chunks of information to the floor plans. I went with a number system. It was the cleanest option. Color coding would have been nice, but we didn't know about color until the Thursday before print and the bulk of the project had to be finished by then.
The front illustration was hand drawn. I bumped the contrast up in and added the wall art in Photoshop and colorized in inDesign. Overall I was happy with it. I wanted the letters to look like a glass sculpture, but it proved to be difficult. I didn't have the time or the reference to get the glass perfect. I added some white highlights to the letters but took them off. I thought they looked cartoon-like. Coworkers and friends I showed the two versions to were divided, so I went with my preference: no shine. Still not sure if it was the right choice.
Overall I am very happy with it. And I'm thankful I was the designer given this project. Can't wait to check it out on the 10th! If anyone reading this is from the area or traveling through, I highly recommend you go. Here is The Pilot's ----> online article <----- (click it) along with a 360 tour. Check it! - brb!