Crafting the vision for a city pitched to the King of Dubai
We were drafted in to create a number of pitch materials for the team, including the company brand, brochure, accompanying presentation and visionary video.
Overview
Cities previously designed to a particular size have generationally doubled and tripled as urbanization stepped up in gears, leaving services bursting at the seams, unable to cope with surges in demand. As a species, we face the tremendous challenges of climate change, environmental degradation, water and food security, and the need to balance sustainability against the need for commerce and economic activity. It is through striving to innovate solutions to a number of these problems, that the Cities of the Future team approached us with their dream for a new city. Their passion and confidence in their dream inspired us, and we loved jumping on board to help them with our design chops and worked to communicate their proposition across a multitude of brand touchpoints.
Our Role
- Branding
- Creative direction
- Visual exploration
- Digital presentation
- Brochure design
- Video production
Year
2013
A tight timelinePutting our cards on the table from day one
We knew that the best way to finish this project in the constrained timeline we were given would be to sit down with the Cities of the Future team from the very beginning of the project and invest some time laying out the major stages and milestones for the project. This helped us to define an internal timeline and highlight the critical path of failure for the project, or in layman’s terms, the tasks we could not afford to overrun on in order to meet our hard deadline. This meant we could effectively allocate resources and responsibilities, amongst the combined team, according to the priorities of the tasks and whether or not they had some flexibility. The time spent doing this paid massive dividends in the end, and meant we were able to deliver everything on time without compromising on our high standards for the work throughout the entirety of the project.
Communicating the visionBuilding it right into the brand
Our first priority was to do some research and explore the proposition of the new city further so that any decisions we made on the direction for our designs were guided by the ethos and main tenets of the project. We wanted to ensure that the city constantly informed our choices with regards to the final deliverables, and through collaboration with the wider team we were able to design a visual identity that we all agreed fit the ultimate vision for the new city.
A brochure worthy of it allDesigned to do so much more than just convey information
We were asked to create a brochure that would accompany the teams pitch for the new city. And as it would serve as a lingering reminder of the proposition after the pitch itself, it quickly became apparent that this had the potential to massively influence the decision on whether the project would be funded.
Iterating on the content and making it work
We began, as always, by working on making sure that the brochure’s content was the right tone for the proposition, and that it all, once collated and ordered, told a single cohesive story. We went through multiple revision with the Cities of the Future team and slowly but surely made progress until we reached a point we were happy we could work from.
Pairing images with the right colours for them
The guidelines we were given for the purpose of the brochure was to focus on ensuring it conveyed a feeling for the vision of the project rather than a document that passed across technical details as important as they are. That’s why we decided to pair poignant images with more muted colours throughout the brochure to tell the story together with the literary contents.
We started by collecting all the images we thought would work well together
Our aim was to get the attention of the readers with large images that fit the theme of the proposition whilst still reinforcing the overall message of the brochure. We pulled together a shortlist of images and paired them with the section of content we felt was most appropriate for them. The ideas behind our choices was to create a human connection between the content and the people reading whilst still retaining the feel of the modern metropolis that was being proposed in the background.
We pulled out the dominant colours from the images
Doing so allowed us to build multiple thematic elements for various spread designs that fit in cohesively with the associated image. This meant the context of the image was felt throughout the spread and outside the bounds of the image itself, whilst having the added benefit of retaining the focus on the content of the brochure.
And then mellowed some of the more vibrant tones
Some of the images’ most dominant colours were incredibly bright, and when paired with any form of content, removed all focus from the message of the spread to the images themselves. For these we toned down the colours and normalised them across the brochure to make them fit better together as a single consistent scheme. We made a conscious decision to maintain an eclectic mix of colour throughout the brochure as we felt it served as a fitting reminder of the vibrant makeup of most cities.
Letting the pages take shape as organically as possible
We quickly decided that we wanted to infuse the brochure with a subtle aura of sophistication to give readers confidence in the team, as well as to make readers want to turn the pages through to the end. Our priority was to ensure that readers would flick through to get a sense for the project and the ultimate vision, whilst still taking away the most important information about the project with them.
What could be better than images? Enormous images.
Because the project’s vision was to create a new city, one which built on top of existing technology segregated across various cities all over the world, the only way we could convey the vision was to try to balance the content alongside large images so that the content would become associated by proximity and stick that little bit longer in the mind. And if we’re using images, why not go all out?
And a few more of the spreads that we came up with
Our aim was to balance the projects content across various spreads to consciously control the rate at which readers would be required to absorb information. This would allow use to subtly influence how much of the projects message would be retained whilst still ending up on final design for the brochure which was extremely consistent yet beautiful.
We went into this project with very rough ideas and thoughts on how best to convey the vision for the project and were incredibly surprised by what Qore turned them into. The end results far exceeded our expectations, and the little details in the design work across the branding, brochure and video were impeccable. I would happily recommend and work with them again for any of my future projects.
Worth a million words?Channelling the excitement for the project through the video
The final piece of the puzzle for this project was getting the video right. It needed to present some of the technical innovations of the new city whilst selling the idea behind the project as well.
Starting out by nailing down the style we wanted
We decided the best way to build a meaningful journey for the viewer was for the video to prioritise an inspiring core message alongside several accompanying clips that would reinforce it. We then laid out our initial storyboard and developed it with the team through multiple iterations; until we arrived on the one we felt fulfilled all our opening criteria as well as working well with the other associated brand materials.
Laying out the story that we wanted to tell
We wanted to make the video as memorable as possible and decided the best way to do this would be to create emotional links between the visionary concept of the city and the story of a family going about their daily lives. And because we developed the script alongside the storyboard, naturally, as time progressed, we found it grew organically and told the teams story in a much more human way.
Making sure the words are felt as they come off of the paper
Pulling the entire video together was the final voiceover. We knew how important it was to do justice to the script by ensuring that the voiceover had the gravitas it needed to correctly convey the vision for the city and the entire project itself. There’s always the balance that needs to be found between fitting in more informational content and making the video digestible, but we got there in the end.
The end result, and the way in which it emphasises the visuals and the videos story, really justifies the amount of time that was spent getting it just right.
The final visionary video
The final video really worked well with the full portfolio of brand elements and completed the encompassing experience that we were asked to help the team with. It was delivered right on schedule and married the initial vision to a more tangible product. Together with the final brochure, it really left a strong impression long after the presentation for the new venture was delivered.
