A good book can hold you captive for hours, luring you in with a mixture of storytelling elements that leaves you totally enchanted. The world passes around you in a blur, your mind delving deeper into the pages. A good book is pure escapism. And so is good design. As a motion designer, my work’s foundations are based in reality, yet I always strive to take it somewhere new, somewhere exciting, perhaps even somewhere slightly daunting. From a base of familiarity, we can take a piece of design to great places, allowing you to fill in the gaps in your mind, like drawing in the path of a skimmed stone between ripples. For instance, old video games were visually clunky, but we filled in the edges with our imaginations. It connected us, let us explore- it let us escape.
Art Galleries
There’s usually a smell of a multitude of overpriced food wafting through an art gallery, the larger ones anyway. You may not see the cafe restaurant, but its pungent baked scones follow you from painting to painting like a dog expecting treats to fall off a kitchen counter. Unless it’s busy, the gallery is more often than not a hushed environment, even though no signs have warned you to keep it down. A mumbling from one person to the other as they wildly take a stab at what the painting is trying to convey is probably the loudest thing you’ll hear, along with the squeaky door, of course. It’s what galleries are, and the closest thing to them are museums in terms of atmosphere. You walk through the door into something different than the street, or a trip to Marks & Sparks. Creativity spawns this escapism, and has done for generations.
Brand Experiences
When brands dip their toes into something similar they stand out like a warm lap to a drowsy cat. Our ventures into print for The Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle capture the phenomenal level of escapism the castle provides to its customers. Water’s Edge branding has some brilliant motion behind it that takes the project to a new, exciting level. We love to bring this element of exploration into each project we do, and it provides our clients with a brand, a product, a design that they could never find anywhere else. Of course, the work we do is planted firmly in what it hopes to communicate and achieve, which is why we find our brand workshops so important. It’s from this foundation that a truly brilliant campaign can be built, and it’s always exciting to us to see where we can take it.
Theme Parks
Throughout the Creative Industries you can find a dizzying array of examples of escapism being used to entice, encourage or enthral. Theme parks use a crafted mixture of sound, smell and visuals to almost play a trick, concealing the real world behind a curtain of make-believe. This illusion draws millions to parks around the world every year, and can display some of the most well-put-together creative projects around. Theatre has always pushed the boundaries in terms of usage of space, getting more and more complicated and majestic each decade. From the falling chandelier in Phantom of the Opera to the simplistic set design of Frankenstein, theatre captures the mood and feel of the production in its escapist visuals, sounds and sets.
Elastic Escapism
Design and brands excel in this environment. Here at Elastic, we love to see brands communicate as well as a sold-out play, an enchanting park or a prestigious gallery. To escape the mundane, or to bring a bit of spark to your brand, get in touch.
