09 Oct Behind-the-Chalk: The FFX Summer Chalk Campaign
In the past few months, you’ve probably seen us sharing our short ventures as we place chalk versions of the Fawkes FX logo around the city. A couple weeks ago we also spent hours creating a chalk mural at the Portland Saturday Market. The chalk campaign has been a lot of fun for our team to create and implement, especially since it gets us out from behind our desks, in the sun, and sharing art with Portland. Here’s a little information on how we did it!
The Fawkes FX Logo:
We decided to start simple. As kids, all of us had drawn with sidewalk chalk, but never as adults on large scale murals. My first thought for an easy-to-implement design that would include the whole company was a stencil of the Fawkes FX logo.
We started out with a cardboard stencil, made from two large boxes that we broke open and laid out to be 85” x 71.5”. I put the design in Photoshop to fit the exact dimensions of the cardboard layout, then cut the design into printable 8” x 11” sheets of paper to tape on the cardboard. Once the dimensions of the design were finalized and the layout was completed, cutting the stencil was easy.
On our first time out, the cardboard stencil worked great. Everyone was given a piece of chalk and told which section to color in. We had a highly efficient team that could put the Fawkes FX logo all over the city. The only problem was, after the third or forth round of stenciling, considerable wear was causing the cardboard to splinter and tear badly. If we were going to keep going at the same momentum we needed something that could handle the wear of repeated use.
The solution? A large sheet of flexible plastic.
After much research and searching, we were able to find two large sheets of plastic to fit the dimensions of our cardboard stencil. We liked the size that the logo was at; it wasn’t so small that no one would see it, but not too large to fit comfortably on a sidewalk. Keeping the logo the same size allowed us to overlay what was left of the cardboard stencil over the plastic and quickly cut out the new stencil.
The plastic stencil is a bit heavier than the cardboard, and curls in odd places, but overall gives the stencil the durability it needs for long term use.
Fawkes at the Portland Saturday Market:
After creating the Fawkes FX logo, our marketing and design teams decided it was time to plan a freehand chalk mural. All of us love the stencil for how easy and quick it is to put around the city, but we decided it was time to make art on a beautiful Saturday and engage with the Portland community.
Since this was just for fun, there were no major requirements for the mural and I was allowed a bit more creative freedom. I created a quick design as a guide, and used this as reference to draw the mural in chalk.
Its always refreshing to break away from designing digitally. Chalk on pavement is an interesting medium to work in, and learning how the colors blended made for an interesting and fun challenge. It had been awhile since I planned a mural so I felt a little rusty, but in the end I was pleased with the result and had a blast making art and meeting new people.
If you ever see us chalking around the city, stop and say hi!
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