Brief Explanation

The goal became to demonstrate the many reds of strawberry red by printing in large scale, with strawberries themselves. We decided to show red, & strawberry as our limitation because there is no such thing as strawberry red. No pantone, no CMYK. The only thing that makes strawberry red, is the context of the strawberry. We could not print with Strawberry, we had to create fields of strawberry pigment, and document it in a neutral environment under color correct lighting.

The Brief

Brain [ブレーン] Magazine is a leading design & advertising magazine in Japan. Every issue of Brain Magazine, companies, artists & designers are given the simple, yet difficult brief to express a single colour for the cover image. Brain Magazine asked us to create the cover image for the MAY 2013 issue. Our brief / colour was "Strawberry Red".

How the final design was conceived

We covered 3 walls with a giant stencil which read "strawberry red" in Japanese (苺の赤), blasted strawberry purée through the stencil with a custom air-compressor "strawberry gun.” We removed the stencil to reveal the word against stark flat white. We projected the Anamorphic word, ignoring the natural parallax. Standing back from the composition at one specific vantage point, one could read the words 苺の赤 as large as possible with little distortion. Up close, the word abstracted, and became "strawberry fields" where one experienced a full range of strawberry reds. This was strawberry red, and even said it.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

The cover design was well received by the magazine, being noted as one of the most labour intensive covers to date. The simplistic outcome became deeply engaging as viewers discovered inside the magazine how the composition was made. According to the magazine, It was successful as a strong graphic arresting image, with a highly engaging back story. The short "making-of clip" was an added bonus with a strong impact & generated a lot of communication among editors and readers.