Promotional campaign for YBCA and it's new "YBCA:You" initiative

The problem: to recast the brand image of YBCA through the launch of the new "YBCA:You: program, which offered an "All-Access Art Pass" that would provide participants with intimate and social vehicles to engage with art, such a personal docent tours, exclusive VIP events with artists, and complimentary admission to various YBCA events. The campaign's tone needed to strike the balance between accessible and sophisticated in the manner for which YBCA is known. "Friendly hip, not hipster hip". Elements included pole banners, bus shelter posters, bus sides, and BART transit posters scattered about San Francisco, More long term were light box posters, large banners, and a wavy 16' x 90' wall that taunts the more august SFMOMA across the street.

First, we immediately impressed upon the client that the campaign should forward the essence of YBCA first, the "YBCA:You" program second. The best art usually forgoes the hard sell to invite interpretation and participation. This campaign should be no different. Show don't tell. Second, since the program is about "You," the campaign should be the same. Every other museum and art organization privileges the art and artists, let's privilege the people that actually come to see the art. Celebrate the disparate reactions that art provokes in different individuals. Highlight the communal and social activity that art facilitates.

Much of the aforementioned insights came from our initial collaborative meetings with YBCA leadership and staff that, through informal discussions and brainstorming, provided the roadmap for our design investigations. YBCA also provided us with preexisting ethnographic research about their membership, visitors, and as of yet untapped audiences. The campaign's "friendly hip" attribute came from data that showed a sizable audience of young, entrepreneurial, and technologically savvy types who were very interested in art, but insecure about their lack or art knowledge and intimidated by institutions that seemed to only speak to a crowd already fluent in "high art" culture. We presented three preliminary directions, though recommended the direction you see now. Other than an exhaustive process in which we finalized the assortment of heads and what fills them, very little of the design changed from that first presentation.

Pentagram partner Eddie Opara remarked recently that "[d]esign is not about solving problems. It's about making people happy." While we would never diminish design that directly helps alleviate world hunger or other such noble causes, there's value in design that simply enlivens one day, if only for a moment, and points someone to a potentially enriching new experience. Since the launch of this campaign, we've received numerous comments from designers and non-designers alike of how much they love this work. Each time we've visited the Third Street wall mural we've witnessed wide-eyed children pointing at the giant-sized heads, or passersby stopping to take pictures of themselves in front of it. It was selected for the AIGA's Design Envy. The YBCA has had numerous calls asking if there are posters of the heads for sale. (And, "YBCA:You" program enrollment and overall attendance is up.)