Concept design and art direction
Designing the marketing concept and identity for a play about the breakdown of a mother
Client: Turku City Theatre
Project: Äiti
Year: 2022
Art direction for the advertising campaign of a Finnish staging of the Mother, a play by Florian Zeller. The play deals with the gradual unraveling of a mother whose adult children and husband have grown increasingly distant. The four character family drama is written in a form that is almost kaleidoscopic, with scenes and conversations repeating in different variations, making it difficult to know what is real and what is imagined. It is a complicated, brilliant play by one of the best modern playwrights. The campaign needed to signal that this was a challenging drama that would not let audiences off easy.
When it's just you for days on end, it's difficult to tell one day apart from the next. Life becomes fractured.
The Mother explores this fracturing, making the viewer question what is real and whose perspective to trust. We centered the identity of the campaign around the idea of fragmentation and lack of purpose, focusing on the titular character. The mother is reflected in multiple mirrors, the campaign image itself mirroring the structure of the play. Color choices were informed by the set- and costume design, resulting in a striking and fresh color palette.
We also shot a moving image version of the campaign with subtle, choppy cuts, like glitches in the memory of the titular character. The fracturing of the image and the glitching video emphasized the avant-garde, modern approach of the play.
CREDITS
Art Direction and video editing: Marita Koivisto
Photography: Otto-Ville Väätäinen
Copywriting: Emmi Kantonen
Costume Design: Heidi Wikar
Sound Design: Eero Auvinen
Makeup: Minna Pilvinen
Actor: Kirsi Tarvainen
