“LEARN, PLAY, BLOOM”
MERIT SCHOOL OF MUSIC BILLBOARD ILLUSTRATIONS.
Merit School of Music is a nationally accredited music school located in Chicago’s West Loop.
Their primary goals are to help young people transform their lives and experience personal growth through music by removing barriers to participation. For 40 years, they have been home to a diverse community of talented young musicians and have acted as a springboard for achieving full musical and personal potential.
The school reached out to me to create a series of illustrations for Wintrust billboards located in Chicago West Loop.
The goal of the project was to show the special power the school’s students acquire when pressing their lips to the mouthpiece or bowing to the strings or opening wide and singing. The city of Chicago is also a major player in the illustrations’ concept.
In the chosen idea I wanted to show characters revealed by a spotlight on “the stage of Chicago”.
The characters are surrounded by city’s landmarks and are significantly larger to show that the city is their playground.
The style of images, font and colors are meant to reflect children’s illustration, vivid and simple. This approach is also essential for the billboard use since the panels will be easily decipherable from afar.
Screenshot taken from the video by Tyrel Davis
video by Tyrel Davis
Final Illustrations
Development
Option 1.
The theme:
One young musician reveals the whimsical colors and contrasts of the world with his/ her music, as if the music spreads around and creates an atmosphere around the musician (a vibrant world or a creative bubble).
Each panel will show several Chicago landmarks surrounding the character. The character will be noticeably larger than the objects in the illustration.
Option 2.
Theme:
The characters are scattered across the billboard, the surreal cityscape is mixed wih nature, unknown islands are floating over it.
The concept shows the characters existing independently, dangling over the city, coming over it, almost as demigods from Olympus.
Their music elevates them over the “regular life”, giving perspective, new vision and horizons of the city.
Option 3.
Theme:
In this option, unlike in Option 1, the character is revealed by a “spotlight”. The “spotlight” also reveals Chicago landmarks showing that the city is the character’s stage.
Each panel will show several Chicago landmarks surrounding the character.
Option 4.
Theme:
As in Option 2 one young musician is at the center of an unknown universe. The sillhouette of Chicago landmarks are mixed with unknown plants and are seen in the background under the musician. The musician is floating in space with his/her music over the nature and buildings.
