March 9th, 2009
Art Director Antti Rastivo of SEK & Grey wanted to make a series of posters for Valio Oivariini. The styles were going to be completely different with each other and many of the posters would have a strong hand-crafted feel to them. The look of the finished series was going to be more classic poster illustration than the everyday advertisement stuff seen all around.
"The creatives Antti and Sami Korjus had some ideas ready for the posters such as "leaving" and "lightness" and some typography designed, but we had a lot of freedom creating the actual visuals for the messages.", says Mikko Vormala. "It took an evening of painting and one of our good bottles of Valpolicella between me and Tuomas to come up with ideas for all five of the posters."
The Fat left
"The door poster was one of the first ones we came up with.", says Tuomas Korpi. "We wanted to get that feel of old movie posters and book covers but at the same time create it in an original way that would also show the handiwork. So we set out to draw a basic black and white sketch with heavily hand-filled shadows."
Lightness is not a thing without the taste
"Our initial idea for the materials for this one was stone or concrete since Antti wanted to have one poster in the series with realistic materials created in 3D.", says Mikko. "He didn't like the idea of heavy materials though and wanted to have a light and airy feel to the objects. He wanted the picture to be a photograph of a built set where all of the letters are hand-made and set in place. The colours are very clear and light compared to the loud and busy tones in some of the artsy posters."
Good beats bad
"This is a true children's book illustration about the fight between good and bad.", says Tuomas. "We were playing with ideas of classical dueling antagonists that would fit in the style of the poster. It was Mikko who dug the cowboy theme out from somewhere in his dark past. Actually the whole idea of two cowboys in hot air balloons was first just a joke but we decided to take a shot at it."
"Since the original layout for the poster was in all of it's simplicity so different from the rest of the series we wanted to keep it as pure as possible.", says Mikko. "We just decided to bring that hand-crafted look into it by painting over the background with acrylics and a large brush and making the letters look like they've been cut out of cardboard. The big picture stays clean and simple but when examining it close up you can see the brush strokes and small drops of paint and all the lurve and tenderness we've put into creating it."
Don't take matters of taste so seriously
"Antti wanted one poster in the series to have an excess of artistic expression and even some insanity to it.", says Tuomas. "He wanted this to be the one that would split people's opinions. We chose a mixed and collage approach to it utilizing pretty much all of the art supplies and equipment we have at the studio starting from brushes and printers and ending with scissors and scotch tape."
Just like Antti had planned, this poster truly was the one that did evoke emotions and strong opinions. It went through quite a tornado of comments and different versions even touching the brink of being left out of the series altogether. "I truly feel the poster more than defends it's place in the campaign.", says Mikko. "Looking at the whole series the loud one makes way more than one fifth of the impact. Cutting it out would've left us with a far weaker campaign."
Tuomas Scissorhands
"Somewhat different from our ordinary line of work, these were in all their simplicity a lot of fun to do.", says Tuomas. "Many of the pictures were finished pretty much the first version. We got the chance to grab real markers and brushes seriously and really stretch our way of working and combining traditional media with digital tools. It's all so rare to get to really create your own styles and carry them out to the end just as you've planned."
"We are really happy that Valio had the courage to buy such brave and unusual advertising for such an established product like Oivariini.", says Mikko. "The folks at Valio were really thrilled with the series and even started printing room posters of some of the pictures."
"One of the things I'm most happy about is Piñata's broad view and open-mindedness.", says Antti Rastivo. "Cultivating ideas and styles together with the guys was very easy and rewarding at the same time. It was cool to get to use different techniques and thus make the best out of Piñata's skills in all the areas."
"A lot of the time I felt like a kid in a candy shop - I'd still like one of those, and those, and one of these...", says Antti. "It was very interesting sort of casting the different actors and messages, like dressing the lines of copy in suitable outfits, if you will. I hope everyone looking at the series will find a poster they like the most and another one they don't like at all. Then I know we have succeeded."
Credits
Client: ValioMarketing Manager: Hanna Savolainen
Agency: SEK & Grey
Excecutive Creative Director: Tommi Laiho
Creatives: Antti Rastivo, Sami Korjus
Creative Assistants: Johanna Puolakka, Kim Sinisalo
Account Executive: Ainoliisa Hieta
Account Director: Inka Hein