LAB CASE

HOW Design

INTERVIEWEES

Sean Mosher-Smith
Echo Designlab

HOW Design –
What Keeps You Up At Night?

For the HOW design conference, International Paper (IP) wanted to do something with invisible inks. They had about 4 weeks before the conference and came to OTTO for ideas. OTTO analyzed the situation and identified a few significant barriers to printing with invisible inks for the conference. The first was cost. The invisible inks were made by a single Japanese company. To test them, the minimum order was for 5lb bags of ink, which cost about $20,000 each. That’s a significant barrier to entry for a test project. The second was the nature of IP’s Accent™ paper. The whitening agents in the paper that help give it the brightness for which it is known include phosphorus and other chemicals. These chemicals interact poorly with invisible ink, causing less-than-ideal performance. And third, there was the element of time… specifically, not enough of it.

OTTO looked at the situation and came up with some creative ideas that played off this idea of invisible printing without needing to use invisible inks. But the HOW conference is an important one for designers. The solution needed to be about more than just printing technique. It needed to showcase the exceptional quality of Accent Opaque paper while also touching on a subject familiar and important to the designer audience.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

The theme of the exhibit was “What Keeps You Up at Night?”
How did you decide to visualize that? 

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

I took the key phrases identified by the OTTO team and used those to start the layering. Since night is associated with dreaming (and nightmares), I added interpretations of dream imagery and a general haze to the pieces as well. Imagery that fades in and out of reality.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

What kinds of content did you decide on for your illustration?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

The content was based on the phrases and dream-like imagery, human figures, faces and, of course, typography.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

How do the different kinds of content work together?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

The trick was to make the content cross over from layer to layer, what gets hidden under a specific light gel and what gets revealed. I rely on happy accidents as well, makes it more interesting and fluid when you are not always sure what will happen.

The trick was to make the content cross over from layer to layer, what gets hidden under a specific light gel and what gets revealed.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

How does the Samoiloff effect work? Where does it come from?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

So from the beginning of this project, the challenge was how to use paper in an unexpected way that shows off the versatility as well as a compelling piece that would engage people at the conference. Since Invisible ink was not going to work, we had to think of something that kept that essence. When I was young, I had a game ($100,000 Pyramid I think it was) and it came with a little piece of red gel and cards with cyan X patterns, when you slid the gel over the card, it would “cancel out” the cyan and reveal something underneath. More recently a similar thing was done for the cover of a Stefan Sagmeister book. We thought this was the best way to preserve the original intent and concept. The challenge was working on essentially 3 different files simultaneously but on one screen. I had 3 pairs of gel “glasses”— red, green and blue. I would work on one section with the lights off wearing the red glasses (which would cancel out some colors and allow me to adjust, add or manipulate the art) and then put on the green, then blue, allowing me to see different art on the same file. It was a time consuming process, not to mention the file size. As it was a tunnel people walked through, the file was built to size. For the actual final piece, instead of gels, we used theater lighting in the RGB spectrum. I think it was very successful.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

How do you marry a theme with an audience?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

I read the brief—the better the brief (this one was spot on), the better the outcome. Also, having experience with trade shows and knowing the idea was to get people in the design industry to interact with the booth, it had to draw them in. Touching on the fears creatives have, mixing it with a tunnel and throwing some lights on it, what better way? I lived the brief since it kept me up at night.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

What was the greatest challenge you faced in executing the project?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

Working wearing the glasses and tweaking to make parts disappear under different colors, then hoping it would translate to the theater lighting. Getting the colors right was tricky but part of the fun.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

Were there any hiccups in the execution, or did everything go according to plan?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

Of course it all went to plan with no hiccups whatsoever… 😉

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

Your illustration style for this piece has a heavy graphic influence in the use of type, for example. Is that typical of your work?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

Yes, I started as an illustrator and always incorporated typography into my work. I naturally fell into doing a lot of design because of it and now create a hybrid of design and art in what I do.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

What are the biggest influences on your visual style?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

Music is a huge influence for me. That, and history, art, the world, as well as travel. I am a huge fan of Sigmar Polke, Mark Rothko, Rauschenberg, Vaughan Oliver, Simon Larbalestier, Chris Bigg and Nigel Grierson to name a few visual artists and graphics designers.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

What are your sources of inspiration when you illustrate?

A | Sean MosheR-Smith

See above. Also I have a collection of ephemera, textures, photographs and drawings that I collect and use in my work.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

What are the things you consider to make an illustration successful?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

Does it answer on the brief, does it draw the viewer in, and do they see what I am asking them to see.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

How was the installation received? Did it work?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

I think it was received well, looked like people had fun with it and took the promotional pieces. I do not know if their sales went up but it made an impression.

Q | OTTO BRAND LAB

Did it keep you up at night?

A | Sean Mosher-Smith

It did, but most likely, I would have been up anyway.

The challenge was working on essentially 3 different files simultaneously but on one screen.