No Surrender, Dorothy!

Scott — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:19:24 +0000

It seems that nowadays Halloween is little more than tired social media memes and carnal desperation in costume form, stumbling into each other at a party (sometimes in the same costume). Sure—maybe it’s that I’m no longer a youth and feel bitter that God has forsaken me. But doesn’t it seem more likely that we’ve irreversibly wandered into the web 2.0 dystopia—an era of celebrity anarchy and narcissistic youth? Either way, it’s clear that the world should have quit while it was ahead. Yes, the candy is still good; yes, it still takes the edge off the beer. But one must wonder “What have we done to the kids?” Fortunately, there is somebody out there still thinking about the kids: The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Every year the museum puts on a themed Haunted Museum for their members, bringing together science and scares—and for the past several years, we’ve designed the invitations for them. Last year, it was “Fairy Tales and Scary Tales,” for which we created a two-sided book featuring a mix of characters from ogres to dire wolves.

This year, the museum decided to turn the Haunted Museum into a travel destination of sorts: the “Land of Awes” (as in The Wizard of Oz). This destination concept delivered the design direction to us on a platter: we would turn the invitation into a travel brochure. Fleshing the idea out, we designed one side to be a poster inspired by travel posters from the thirties, while the other side became a metaphoric map of the evening’s itinerary. Naturally, both sides included a hybrid of Oz characters and museum specimens, such as a tin Thomas the T. Rex, a cowardly saber-toothed tiger, flying monkeys, and Fruitaden Munchkins. It was a lot of work, but fortunately Grace the intern was here to help us illustrate Thomas and the tiger.

While it is just one invitation to one event in one city, we feel proud that we were able to do our part to keep Halloween from falling completely into the evil clutches of post-adolescent party culture and keep it just a little bit fun for the kids (however doomed they may be). Plus, it was just awes-fully fun to create. @scottfuse

Take a look at the gallery, and let us know what you think. >>

Tags: client illustration invitation Natural History Museum

Sparking our Creativity

Jessica — Fri, 25 May 2012 04:48:31 +0000

Do you ever feel that, some days, you just want to set everything on fire? I know! Me too! Fortunately for me, LA Opera was able to help me out and provide an outlet for my pyromaniacal tendencies.

While brainstorming the look for the fire-themed Opening Night gala, we knew we had to reference fire without getting too literal. We hit upon the idea of using the by-product of fire to create the event title and although we couldn’t get an invitation made out of smoke to work, what came out of that idea was, we think, even better.

With a direction in mind, I took the implements of destruction (a borrowed pink Bic lighter, a pad of white plain paper and a hose in case of emergency) and headed outside so as to not burn down our lovely new office.

Things that were learned during this experiment:

While you think alcohol would be flammable, it turns out that painting with 8 year old rubbing alcohol and trying to light it on fire only leads to a wet, blotchy piece of paper.

Despite our name, nobody at Studio Fuse carries a lighter. Our friendly neighborhood spa, Cote d’Azur, on the other hand, needs something to light all those aromatherapy candles and were happy to help us set things on fire.

Blowing gently helps the embers singe the paper better. Blowing a little harder makes for a full on conflagration.

Having access to an outdoor water source is good. Wearing close-toed shoes is better.

The results turned into an excellent starting point for an idea that we’re really proud of. The final version is still smoldering on our server, but we’ll be sure to update once the final invitation is hot off the presses. @jes_fuse

Note: Forgive us for the puns… but sometimes you’re just on fire.

The Blog of Studio Fuse » invitation

No Surrender, Dorothy!

Sparking our Creativity

Things that were learned during this experiment:

Blowing gently helps the embers singe the paper better. Blowing a little harder makes for a full on conflagration.

Blowing gently helps the embers singe the paper better. Blowing a little harder makes for a full on conflagration.