Responses by Tom Jeffrey, creative director/copywriter and Trish Derrig, associate creative director, Hook
Background: The Gadsden Field Notes brochure guide was designed as a giveaway booklet for those who had an interest in purchasing a luxury condominium at the Gadsden in Charleston, South Carolina. The book was meant to provide an overview of the property and surrounding neighborhood. When you flip the book over, it doubles as a 30-page notebook. A wooden pencil was attached to the book so home shoppers can begin notetaking during a property showing.
Reasoning: Many home shoppers tour multiple properties in one day, but start forgetting the details after visiting multiple locations. So we made a book that provides an overview of the Gadsden, a historic timeline of Charleston and plenty of blank pages to jot down little details about what they love about the property. Turning an ordinary brochure into a keepsake notebook could ultimately tip a buyer into the Gadsden’s favor.
Challenges: Like most real estate development projects, when construction begins, there are no images to design around; for us, all we had were some architectural renderings for reference. To add some charm to the digital renderings, we created a watercolor effect with them and kept a hand-made, human feel by drawing little illustrations that reflected the both the building and neighborhood, also reinforcing the idea that this brochure doubles as a journal.
Favorite details: The 34 linear illustrations that were all hand-drawn by Brady Waggoner and Trish Derrig.
Anything new: Knowing that most users will just flip past the cover and intro pages in order to use the provided blank journal sheets, we decided to give the “Memo” side its own cover with very little Gadsden branding. Now when used like a journal, it truly looks like a unique field notes booklet. That decision to make this a dual-cover piece was based on design empathy and made the final printed piece clever and functional.
Visual influences: Actual “Field Notes” booklets complete with tactical tidbits.
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