Brand New School's West Coast artists have recently collaborated with Target's art director Charley Little and his colleagues to produce the graphics for the official Target Racing transports, including merchandise and hospitality trailers and car haulers, as well as additional team promotional elements which have debuted at recent NASCAR and Indy Racing League events.
The new graphics back Target Racing's 2010 sponsored drivers, 2007 and 2009 IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti, 2008 IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon, and NASCAR Sprint Cup's Juan Pablo Montoya.
"Brand New School's ability to take an idea and elevate it to a new place is something we've always enjoyed on our many collaborations in the past," said Little.
"The work we created here is like nothing else in racing. Seeing the transports in person is truly amazing—one of the more rewarding moments I've had as a designer."
Brand New School's team, led by creative director Jens Gehlhaar and art director Ludovic Schorno, and featuring designers Kris Wong, Jiaren Hui, Wakako Ichinose, Paul Lee, and Andrew Tan, began with the goal of creating a more dynamic means of presenting team drivers than the static and posed imagery typically used by other teams.
"Charley wanted something that reflected the drama and excitement of racing in a stylized way, something more visceral and cinematic," said Schorno.
"The use of light was also integral to the brief: Charley wanted to see light used in an innovative way that would further differentiate the Target Team."
For the project's main assets, Target Racing's NASCAR and Indy cars were photographed by Vic Huber, and driver portraits were photographed by Patrik Giardino, using very specific art directions from Brand New School.
"As the cars lived within the graphic environment we created, we needed to make sure that the photography and lighting would match our designs," Schorno said.
"After making a round of compositional exercises with a low polygon model of the cars within the hauler format, and then getting the specific compositions approved by Charley, we extracted the 3D camera data and provided Vic and Patrik with the exact angle, lenses and camera heights to match our environments in their photographs. This innovative collaboration enabled us to design our final layouts without photographs of the actual cars."
In finishing the artwork to accommodate the 50-foot long haulers, Brand New School's designers were equipped with MacPro workstations with 32 gigabytes of RAM, allowing them to work at a resolution of 300 dpi at quarter scale. Adobe Creative Suite, and Autodesk Maya and Flame were among their other primary artistic tools. Finishing and printing of the final compositions was handled through Minneapolis-based marketing agency Periscope.
"We have enjoyed a long and fruitful exchange with Target's art directors," said Gehlhaar.
"Highlights of this collaboration are the eight-spot 'Simply What Matters' campaign we directed for them in 2006, and most recently, the graphics we produced for their 2009 holiday campaign TV spots out of Wieden+Kennedy. This relationship has been very productive, and it's one we're extremely proud of."
For Target, credit also goes to creative manager Jon Baugh, art buyer Jessica Nielsen, studio producer Ann Zarth, copywriter Andy Thieman and production designer Scott Gilson.
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