The Art Directors Club is a global organization of creative professionals whose mission is to connect, provoke and elevate visual communicators. The ADC holds an annual competition to acknowledge and celebrate the best minds in the creative industries, awarding them with an ADC Cube. To help promote their 90th call for entries ADC invited artists, including myself, to submit artwork based on a cube template to communicate their message, to Connect, Provoke and Elevate.
Having an affinity for things mechanical, I took elevate literally. An elevator suited the cube template perfectly, so I started there.
Next I wanted to find a visual metaphor that spoke to the role art directors play in challenging creatives and editors to up their game. The phrase elevator pitch came to mind, which refers to a speech given to sell someone on an idea, product or project, in the time it takes to ride an elevator. I wanted the piece to have more depth than just two businessmen speaking in an elevator, so I sought other senses of the word pitch. Among other things, it can mean throwing a baseball, or (chiefly British) a soccer field (football pitch).
Though a baseball metaphor would probably go over better with an American audience, soccer seemed to better suit the challenge/cooperation metaphor I was going for. And football is the world’s game.
All the artwork debuted at ADC Gallery in New York City, and the call for entries should be out soon. Big thanks to Tessar, Nimit and Alexei who challenged me to up my game on this one.
Update: This work has been moved to my editorial illustration portfolio, Textbook Example.
