Brief
For this live brief from Waterloo Community Theatre, we have been asked to originate creative ways that encourage young audiences to further engage with Waterloo Community Theatre.

 

Objectives

• To produce 12 illustrations that will boost Waterloo Community Theatre’s ethos and services.

• To communicate and create a greater awareness of the work done by WCT and the impact they have by giving a young audience a creative platform to share their stories and ideas.

• Advertising WCT’s work and the impact of it, gaining interest from potential funders

• Draw interest of the audience outside the workshops

• Using the voice of young people, promoting that the work is for, by and created with a young audience.

 

Outcome
WCT is determined to give their young audience a creative platform that lets them share their stories and ideas. I decided to use my visit to the theatre as an opportunity to speak to participants individually, to establish what they have been able to get out of the theatre since joining. This lead to me focusing each illustration on an individual member of WCT and their perspective of what they have gained. As one of the objectives of the brief is to generate greater awareness of the work done by WCT, I thought this would be a perfect way to illustrate the success it’s had on individuals, rather than to generalise the impact.

 

With a young target audience in mind, I was aiming to create colourful and playful illustrations while capturing the appearance, characteristics and emotions of members. As I was aiming to tell an individual story of each member, I wanted the vivid colours to represent the youth, or more specifically their energy and excitement. Style-wise I had to go through various exploration but ultimately I found a style and method that comes across extremely effective. Using the same organic shapes in the background but in different colours per illustration really adds dimension to the images. Individually the illustrations work really well but actually, I find they are more compelling when placed together. Each attribute is highlighted and you can see a whole community of diverse individuals who enjoy being part of WCT.

 

Work is often selected based on whether it would attract the right audience or whether the concept has been communicated well visually. I considered user experience throughout this project, focusing on how my design would make a young audience feel. As well as being visually aesthetic, I believe that my designs attract my intended target audience with the use of colour. In addition to being able to view themselves in the characters illustrated, they might also be able to relate to the text or simply look up to them with the hope of being in their position one day.