Gallery of California Natural Sciences Re-Opening Campaign

Spring 2013

Showcasing a fresh focus on California’s natural history, the reinstalled 30,000-square-foot GALLERY OF CALIFORNIA NATURAL SCIENCES presents seven places throughout California that depict the state’s diversity of climate, geology, habitats, ecosystems, and wildlife, while exploring current research, contemporary issues of land use, environmental conflict, and conservation projects.

Working with OMCA's Marketing & Communications team, along with a group of key stakeholders, I served as the creative lead on the project, providing concept, collaborating on copy, and developing final materials.

Creative Direction  |  Concept + Branding  |  Graphic Design  |  Copy Writing + Editing

CAMPAIGN & COLLATERAL

In the initial brainstorming charrette, the team agreed upon the idea of using California species and landscapes to reference the Californian lifestyle in a humorous and endearing way. The resulting campaign messaging combined a science fact with a popular California stereotype.

A series of fact / photo / stereotype pairings were developed; twelve in all. The color palate was rich and vibrant, mixing warm and cool hues. An anchor color for the GALLERY OF CALIFORNIA NATURAL SCIENCES, chartreuse, was used throughout all materials.

Key outdoor advertising buys included BART stations, trains and AC Transit buses.

It was a lot of fun participating in the back and forth of writing and perfecting the copy for the campaign with the marketing team, something that I don't always have the opportunity to contribute to.

BART station king and train interior ads.

For both BART station and AC Transit bus kings, two specific tags were developed related to commuting and rush hour featuring mallards and king salmon.

In addition to outdoor and transit, dozens and dozens of print publication buys were made, using the same creative. There were some exceptions; for a progressive nature publication, a sly reference was made to cannabis. For the Southwest in-flight magazine, SPIRIT, a tag was developed based on the mallard commuter creative that specifically referenced frequent flyers. 

BART station ads were designed to be positioned as single buys or in pairs. The campaign was very successful and lead to a generous boost in attendance for the Gallery's first summer.