I Am Here — theatre identity, print collateral and a hand-drawn chalk mural

Overview

I Am Here was a 2012 theatre production presented by Queensland Theatre Company @ The GreenHouse, the Multicultural Development Association (MDA) and Two Thumbs Up at the Bille Brown Studio from 6–8 December 2012. AussieTheatre described the work as built from real stories devised with young people from refugee backgrounds — an honest, confronting and deeply human experience rather than a conventional fictional theatre work.

The visual identity had to carry that weight. It had to be honest about the subject matter without being heavy, feel personal and hand-made rather than corporate, and scale from a small printed handout to a wall-sized hand-drawn chalk mural at the venue entrance without losing its character.

The brief and the challenge

There were two real challenges on this brief. The first was tonal: the production dealt with displacement, refugee experience, memory, identity and survival. The visual material needed to attract attention and communicate the emotional weight of the production while still feeling immediate, human and grounded — not theatrical or distant.

The second was technical and time-sensitive. After the original cast photoshoot was completed, the main female lead had to withdraw with only one week to opening night due to family circumstances. A new lead performer was photographed in a separate session and then had to be composited into the original group image so seamlessly that the final poster looked like a single, unified photoshoot. The final result was indistinguishable from an unedited image — no one knew it had been reconstructed.

The approach

The visual direction was deliberately raw, minimal and emotionally direct. The cast image was set against a Brisbane city backdrop, with performers facing the viewer to create an immediate human connection — visually reinforcing the production title. The typography used a distressed typewriter-style treatment to give the design a documentary quality, avoiding a glossy entertainment-poster feel.

In addition to the printed collateral, LovelyPixel designed and hand-drew a full-scale chalk mural at the entrance and waiting area of the venue — turning the lead-in to the show into part of the production's atmosphere. The mural used hand-rendered lettering, African landscape symbolism, animal silhouettes, dandelion motifs and map-like forms. The hand-drawn aesthetic that informed the mural also informed the type and mark treatment across the poster, postcards, programme and CD cover.

• Theatre poster design — print-ready, large-format
• Promotional postcard design for venue and community distribution
• Show programme design — saddle-stitched booklet for audience distribution
• CD cover artwork for accompanying audio release
• Hand-drawn chalk mural — designed and installed at venue entrance
• Promotional video for digital and event distribution
• Advanced Photoshop compositing and image reconstruction after late cast change
• Cast photoshoot art direction and image retouching

Project gallery

Photoshop compositing under deadline

The cast composite work alone is worth a case study. Inserting a new performer into an existing group photograph so that the final image looks unified across lighting direction, scale, body proportion, perspective, skin tone, shadow placement, edge blending, colour grading, grain and overall composition — and doing it under a week-long deadline before opening night — is the kind of work that hides in plain sight when it's done right.

The final poster shipped, the production opened on schedule, and no one ever knew the image had been reconstructed. That kind of invisible problem-solving is often what defines whether a campaign lands.

Designing for subject matter that demands restraint

The hardest part of this brief was tonal. First-person storytelling by young refugees would have been undermined by an over-designed identity. The work needed to hold attention without competing with the stories being told on stage. The hand-drawn approach kept the design feeling honest, and the chalk mural in particular gave the venue a sense of place that no printed poster could have.

One identity across six formats

Working across poster, postcards, programme, CD cover, chalk mural and promotional video meant decisions on type, mark and colour had to be made once and held across every output. That kind of cross-format thinking is the same discipline we use on commercial brand identity rollouts — making sure a business doesn't look like one studio designed its logo, a different one designed its brochures, and a third designed its signage.

The same approach — one calm visual idea, applied with restraint, working across every touchpoint — is what we bring to logo design, graphic design and print collateral, and Brisbane brand identity work for Australian businesses.

Outcome

The marketing collateral gave I Am Here a powerful and cohesive visual identity across print and venue presentation. The poster and postcard communicated the production clearly while creating a strong emotional pull. The Photoshop compositing challenge was resolved successfully and the updated cast image appeared natural and seamless. The chalk mural extended the campaign into the physical theatre space, turning the venue's waiting area into part of the production's atmosphere.

For LovelyPixel, this project demonstrates an unusual combination of skills in a single brief — theatre poster design, postcard design, programme design, campaign art direction, professional Photoshop compositing, print design and large-scale hand-rendered mural work — all delivered to a real opening night.

Skills and capability