TYPOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION & MERCH STRATEGY
PARSONS PROJECT (2022)
TYPE ZOO
By constructing animals entirely with typography, this project reimagines zoo aesthetics through design-forward visuals, opening space for merchandising and communication that speaks to adult audiences in a city like New York.
THE INTERACTION
Graza has two main products: Drizzle, an olive oil to eat raw, and Sizzle, an olive oil to cook with. Verbing "Shazam," we have the campaign concept and name: Shazam your Sizzle. It's as simple as it sounds: when you're cooking something, Shazam your sizzle and access a hidden page with cultural playlists, recipes, and quizzes that you can record yourself taking and share online for a chance of winning a musical-culinary trip to Graza's olive farms in Spain.
CHANNELS
To create awareness about the campaign in a minimally invasive way to Graza's production and logistics, we'd add tags and stickers to their products. The Shazam app would display easter eggs like they currently do with Apple Music playlists and features, and all of this would be accompanied by traditional ooh spots and social media content.
EXPECTED OUTCOME
It's hard to dictate or even define what's "viral" today, but this campaign has a lot of potential to generate valuable user content. "Shazamming" your sizzle is an interaction that requires no money and very little commitment. Most people already have Shazam, most people already cook something, sometimes, and pretty much anything that you throw on a hot pan with oil sizzles. The quizzes will engage an audience that likes cooking and allow users to record themselves in the style of a TikTok/Instagram filter, which they're used to seeing and sharing. Lastly, the trip given as a reward is an excellent opportunity for both brands to produce even more content and reinforce a connection between their music and food businesses.
For this project I had to design advertisement posters for the Bronx Zoo including animals drawn using only typography. I then had to use these animals to design merchandising pieces and a mockup website. The examples that we were given in class were very minimalistic and used only a few letters to draw simple animals, which is what everyone else in class ended up doing. On the other hand, I saw an opportunity to do something completely different and go on a maximalist route. I worked on this project basically while I was learning Illustrator and InDesign, so it was very challenging. At the same time, it was really rewarding to see the final product as I believe that the maximalist design gave me a lot of complexity but still turned out very coherent. A few months later I went to the Bronx Zoo and saw that they could really use this merch collection. I showed the bison tote bag mockup to a sales clerk and they loved it, but neither one of us knew who to talk to make this happen.
SKETCHES
POSTERS
MOCKUPS
MERCHANDISING
