In Good Company: promotional imagery for a multi-city, walking theatre project

The kind volk at the Goethe-Institut Chicago recently asked yesIsaid to devise a system of promotional imagery for an ambitious theatrical project taking place later this year in Houston, St. Paul, and Milwaukee. In Good Company is a series of walking performances helmed by Chicago’s Theatre Y in collaboration with German performance collective Rimini Protocol’s Helgard Haug.

Here is a promotional video that discusses the ideas and motivations behind the project:

The brief

The client provided the following description of the project:

In Good Company, a walking theater production, immerses audiences in a dreamlike experience that explores the power and practice of civic imagination among local, living communities. As we seek to realize the promises of democracy in the places we call home, In Good Company invites audiences to reflect on how we embody our ideals of community as we live and move through our city streets.

They were looking for a system of key promotional images and a logotype that they could use across social media, videos, and potentially also on buttons, totes, and T-shirts. The design was to have broad appeal—something that speaks to both a retired dad in the suburbs and a 25-year-old art student. I didn’t need to adhere strictly to the Goethe-Institut visual brand, but incorporating its color and type would be a nice bonus.

Reference images

The client provided the following images as inspiration and reference for the project, with the following annotations:

1. Double Exposure – Gegenüber – Goethe-Institut (images on the right-hand side) the collage vibe of these graphics from the main project these walks are derived from
2. UNDIVIDE US | Cato Institute the visuals of the documentary “Undivide Us” – the kind of Americana style and how the logo can be placed on different assets
3. The Emerald Camino Project — Theatre Y (‘You Are Here’ image) The translucency that plays a little homage to the “double exposure” idea
4. Walking related icons, like walking person or a path or similar

First ideas

The first round of deisigns I submitted to Goethe consisted of four concepts, each emphasizing a distressed, maximalist collage aesthetic with a vintage/retro inflection.

Round one client feedback

The client, pleased with the work so far, came back with the following feedback and requests:

Love it! Love the variety, texture and the collages!

Design 1 is our favorite; we like the overall colors and textures; we would like to move forward with the following feedback:

1. Not using any actual people (gives us too much to think about what people to use, how many, where do they look, what do they look at etc.) – focusing on a collage like background and the logo.
2. We like the muted, earthy colors and textures of #1 – perhaps you can create 2-3 final images (when the time comes) that each use only 2-3 elements (so brick flag, cardboard and grass in one; map, cardboard and sky in another etc.)
3. We like the font and icons of #1 but could you try it in the Goethe FF Clan (just so we can see – either all caps or all lower case). One feedback was that the icons look like they are walking out of the image – not sure if the composition would allow them to be anywhere else though.
4. Another inspo I received was this sort of pieced together flow of a map. If there a way to incorporate that? Maybe in the image of the back (we liked concept 2 as well, but it reminded us a little too much of 80s videogames but maybe it can be adapted with a different color scheme?) Or is there perhaps a way to incorporate the idea of the map with movement (from the google search linked) into the actual font/logo instead of the walking people icons?

Situationist inspiration

The inspiration mentioned in item #4 (the “sort of pieced together flow of a map”) is this map, created by Guy DeBord – founder of the revolutionary, capitalism-critical Situationist International group in early-20th-century France. It illustrates the concept of the dérive (drift): “an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, in which participants stop focusing on their everyday relations to their social environment.”¹

Taking these cues, I began working on a second round of ideas based on Concept 1.

The materials I used in these collages came from an assortment of old and contemporary sources. The aged looking map excerpts are sampled from Sanborn maps – maps created during the 19th and 20th centuries by the Sanborn Map Company for use in fire insurance underwriting, available from the Library of Congress. The trees are clipped from public domain, botanical illustrations published by Editions Larousse ca. 1932. I sourced the urban textures and vintage-looking photo excerpts from photos taken on my phone around Lexington, KY and images generated by Adobe AI. I purchased the local landmark photos from royalty-free sites, and ran them through a photocopy/halftone filter for stylistic consistency.

Second ideas

In round two of the design process, I presented an evolution of Concept 1, and a new concept based on the Situationist map. This document also presented the requested logo variations in sample social media post designs provided by the client.

More thoughts in the meantime…

The folks at Goethe took some days to get back to me with their responses to round 2, and I used the time to work on the following additional designs during that time:

Round two client feedback, final designs

The client eventually got back to me, requesting final versions of Concept 1 in various dimensions in four groups, each highlighting a location or building specific to one of the cities hosting the performance. They also decided on the logo that used their brand typeface in all caps, and requested a version of the Situationist map/arrows with a transparent background that they could use as an element in images that they would create down the line. I delivered the images and logo files separately, so they had some flexibility about what information they could include. Below is a set of final promo images for Houston.

In conclusion….

I’ve been working with the Goethe-Institut for the better part of 10 years at this point, and every project has resulted in some of my favorite work; what a dream to be able to collaborate with such a high-minded and influential institution! If you happen to find yourself in Houston (September 20), Milwaukee (September 27), or St. Paul (October 4), why not take a walk in solidarity with Theatre Y and the Goethe-Institut?

In Good Company Links

Do you need promotional imagery for your cultural programming or arts event? Contact me today for a free consultation and project quote.