Creative Direction, Illustration, Graphic Design

For years, Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital has sponsored the playground at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge; but the area’s theming was an off-the-shelf package themed to bears and honeybees. When the hospital renewed its sponsorship for 2016, our marketing department decided it was time to synergize the playground with our overall brand. We specifically wanted to post interesting facts about children’s health. However, the playground’s forest-themed equipment would remain, and our new design had to bridge children’s health with the bears and honeybees throughout the playground.

I solved this by splitting the graphics package between the overhead bulkhead and the ground-level walls. The bulkhead features the health facts, whereas the lower walls display forest animals. A consistent art style, color palette, and series of stacked bars unify the upper and lower halves of the playground, while the physical distance prevents the juxtaposed intentions from seeming odd.

One of our department’s junior designers handled the bulkhead, and I simply art directed her work to make sure it matched the children’s hospital’s standards.

As for the bottom half, I personally illustrated and designed the artwork that wraps around the playground. Bushes and topiaries transform the previous forest into a park setting. In a nod to the old design, a hungry bear eyes a beehive dripping in honey; but now an agitated bee observes the bear’s actions. In another panel, a rabbit and squirrel play cards, each hiding a special Ace of spades in case it’s needed. The final panel captures a slick fox reaching for some honey that a sleeping bear has foolishly left in plain view.