Grand Marais Art Colony | 2021

It is Grand Marais Art Colony’s (GMAC) mission to promote art education and nurture art in the community. To do that, they offer an extensive list of art classes, independent residencies, and mentor programs each year. 2021 was no different. The Art Colony’s schedule is chalked full of offerings. With all these great programs lined up, it was time to strategize how to promote them to art-lovers alike.

Planning

Before we even started thinking through design concepts for GMAC’s offerings, we first needed to strategy the how. How would they get the word out in the best, most efficient way possible. Through collaboration, it was decided that we’d heavily leverage digital channels to promote GMAC’s 2021 offerings. We’d still create a print mail piece, but the use of digital assets would allow GMAC to expand their reach much further. It also gave them a chance to leverage their instructors by creating prepared digital assets for them to post to and share with their own group of followers (be it email, social media, etc.)

The scope of the project was finalized with us creating promotional assets for four categories. 1) The general GMAC brand 2) Course mediums 3) Each specific instructors 4) Each specific art class offered

Design

With the how of promotion nailed down, we got to work.

We had a starting place for the design with the Art Colony’s yearly theme already decided. They had been going through the various elements and this year ‘fire’ was the chosen element/theme. We still, however, had to find that hook that would connect all the assets we’d create (over 160!) We started with the print mailer as it gave us the most real estate to build off of the fire theme. Utilizing large colorful imagery helped us capture the essence of the Colony and all it has to offer. The vibrant images also provide a chance for viewers to picture themselves as a part of the creative GMAC community.

With dedicated spreads for each offering category (entry points, art classes, events, and independent residencies) the piece started to come together. We tied in the theme of fire through inspiring, action-oriented messaging. Headlines like ‘feed your fire’, ‘find your spark’ and ‘ignite your potential’ were all used. Our aim with these, and others, was to encourage readers to dream of expanding their craft.

With the mailer in place, we moved on to the numerous digital assets. These consisted of social media images, email headers and website banners. Again, we chose to utilize beautiful photos of artists, their process and their work. However, keeping things uniform was tough to do with the photos varying widely. We also thought it would be extremely boring if everything was cookie cutter. So we had some fun with the pieces and let the photo drive the layout. We still found ways to tie a consistent element throughout, though. Elements like GMAC’s logo as a color block overlay and a harmonious color scheme.

How do you think it all came together?

 

To view Grand Marais art Colony’s 2020 art class catalog, click here.