Case Study:SGI-USAOPEN HOUSE & BLOCK PARTY ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN

Event Date: September 7th, 2008

Creative Director: Takao UmeharaDesigner: Tomoko NakanoIllustrator and Production Team Leader: Yumiko FurukawaPhotography: Manuel Elias

Background and design approachNon profit peace, culture and educational institution SGI-USA hosted a open house and block party on 15th Street between Union Sq. West and 5th Avenue in Manhattan New York on September 7th, 2008.

Chakotaco creative director Takao Umehara art directed and developed an entire event graphics from Logo, Flier, event brochure, poster, T-shirts, to environmental graphic which would brand the entire 15th street for that day.

The project had less than 2 weeks to design and implement within tight budget which often is a case for non profit organization. Chakotaco started the process from coming up the overall concept including logo and how to communicate messages on the outdoor street environment.

Chakotaco decided to make this 15th Street as a ‘Daisaku Ikeda Way’, who is a current leading peace fighter and president of SGI. The street gets filled with his inspirational quotes that would go along with the street sign of ‘Daisaku Ikeda Way’.

Another challenge was that despise beautiful architecture of SGI-USA New York Culture Center, entire building was covered by scaffolding for maintenance. Chakotaco came up with the idea to utilize the existing scaffolding structure as part of the design system.

The 15th Street had another large construction going on and we were also challenged how to utlize this construction wall that was distracting for this event. Chakotaco craeted a peace drawing board to invite visitors to draw anything about their message for peace. This board became one of the most popular activity during this event which served as interactive communication tool between participants and SGI-USA.