Museum of the City of New York
Branding
Visual Identity
Animation
In the blink of an eye, the flash of a subway train, or the fleeting flicker of a wild-posting from your cab window – our friends at the MCNY challenged us to create awareness for their massive THIS IS NEW YORK exhibition.
Executive Producer
Kate Swift
Creative Director
Ryan Summers
Producer
Sarah Biasello
Design
Jason Oberg, Hollee Winans, Adam Schmisek
Animation
Hollee Winans
Compressing 100 years of art and pop culture somehow into the 4th floor of their magnificent museum, we needed to devise a plan to capture everyone's Gotham fascination, whether you're a generational NYC local or a tourist that wishes they called the city their home.
A few more wrinkles thrown into the mix:
MCNY is part of a crowded attention marketplace that is difficult to cut through to create awareness.
The client supplied pre-existing collateral and designs that needed to sit comfortably alongside our bespoke work for the exhibition.
We couldn't show ANY of the actual art.
That's right – a floor full of stunning artwork and Sarah Jessica Parker's dress from SEX IN THE CITY, and we couldn't show a single pixel of it.
Therein lies the challenge; how do you tell the hundred year story of a City That Never Sleeps?
MEET ME IN THE CITY.
Second hand news? That's not SPILLT's style.
New York's story, the real one – it's out there, but you won't find it in books or movies or YouTube channels. We got out to NYC as fast as we could and immersed ourselves in everything that makes the city and it's people tick:
Eat the food. Drink the drinks. Get to the highest of heights and look all around. Lean in down real low and look for all the little details.
Most of all? Go talk to the people.
Our creative process is built upon the idea that the best way through a problem is often to start inside the problem itself. Get away from our computers, get our hands messy, and treat the problem like a playground as soon as possible. You should see us when we get back to our desks! Once we dust ourselves off, regroup at HQ, and start talking, the stories come pouring out: what did you hear, who did you meet, where did you eat, how did it sound, why did you do that?!? At some point we drop it all into and start assembling the list – the Top 10 Things We've Learned So Far.
Our ethos at SPILLT isn't scientific or rigid – it's built on the spirit of recapturing the sense of wonder and curiosity we all had on the playground as kids. Do you remember that feeling that anything was possible when you hit the slides at sonic speed and ran across the top of the monkey-bars, even though you weren't supposed to?
That's what we aim for at the start of our development phase: a no rules ruckus with lightning fast ideation, flipping over all the rocks and bouncing off each other and laughing as we try something new.
Take a look at our earliest explorations; some get wild with the movement we found on the streets of the city, some are reserved with a burst of energy from the locals we met, and other riff on the curious sense of typeface experimentation we found already waiting within the walls of MCNY.
Once we've pushed the boundaries, it's time to take a step back, soak it all in with the clients and take what works across all the concepts and piece it together into something that can work across subway stations, wild-postings, pre-rolls and more.
What did we learn? We hit this thing HARD. Like the Ramones getting back together after some time off, everything was operating at full-tilt boogie, blasting the viewer with eclectic font choices, bold color palettes, and kinetic energy bursting off the page, even in it's still form.
"We like it, but can it all be a little... less?"
Oh yes, oh yes – this is what we love best. Clients who take us past that initial idea jam and together push the work above the rest. Watch us as we refined and set the work in situ to get the best look at how this campaign would live in the real world.
NEW YORK STATE OF MIND.
Ever spent time in the city? You can feel it immediately – the pace changes the second you step foot on the streets: cabs streaking around the corner, tourists stopping to ask for directions, the sights, the sounds – the SMELLS?!?
Our goal this round was to meet the audience where they were most receptive to our story; where and when they were taking a breather from it all. Through these designs, we found a formula that worked:
Big bold colors surrounded by relaxing swaths of negative space.
Establish typographic grids and break them to snag a second of someone's attention.
Strong large verticality in both composition and typeface choices that can be seen across the street – with smaller compressed horizontal type to reward second and third viewings when you're sitting on the subway.
Our process here at SPILLT is something we like to call the Beautiful Mess™ – embracing the chaos of creative discovery and combining our curious energy with our methodical approach really helps us find unique solutions while staying mindful of our client's needs.
We're so proud of the final campaign we helped craft for the Museum – it's not everyday your work ends up on subways and signs all over the City That Never Sleeps.
But we're equally proud of how we got there on this one; at a time when everyone is remote, distributed, and asynchronous, we got artists, writers, clients, and city experts together in the Playground and embracing the Beautiful Mess™.
Our theory from the onset stayed true to the end: capture the character and emotion of both the city and it's people and connect them to the personalities of those that are honored by the exhibition – allowing guests to see themselves as part of the last 100 years of the city.
A huge thank you to Sheryl, Tara, Dave and the rest of the team at MCNY as they assembled the most epic exhibit about the last hundred years of New York City.
We are so happy to play a part in shining the spotlight on their wonderful work showcasing the most wonderful of cities.
