The artwork for the 2018 Modern Phoenix Week and Home Tour collateral was inspired by a vintage rendering by William Krisel, AIA, a famous Palm Springs architect whose pocket of work we recently rediscovered in Phoenix. Original homeowners from the Marion Estates neighborhood where the homes are located recalled that the foothills used to be home to jackrabbits. Urbanization has since driven these wild creatures away. We revived the original midcentury landscaping, architecture and the jackrabbits to promote the event in this artwork entitled "Honey, I'm Home."
Primary resource research is a crucial and highly enjoyable part of the process. Because Krisel's architecture had been modified for decades and was nearly unrecognizable (even to Krisel himself) we took a white-glove pilgrimage to the Getty Research Institute where his archive of drawings are housed.
Modern Phoenix Week 2018 represented a departure from the model our event had been using for the previous decade. Strategic partnerships were forged with cultural institutions to de-centralize the event and distribute it more citywide. Almost all marketing was directed through web, eblasts and social media channels with our partners. Nearly all events filled to capacity, and as usual the annual home tour sold out within hours of the eblast announcing the box office opening.
We rebranded the Modern Phoenix Marketplace as the Modern Phoenix Expo in 2018, coinciding with a significant change of venue and format.
We didn't want to be subtle about the change. Eye-poppingly loud social media graphics for wayfinding signage, Eventbrite and Instagram marketing echoed the blocky character of the Modern Phoenix logo.
Fans eagerly anticipated the week's events and friendly competitions. 2018 featured creative contests to encourage them to interact with modern architecture in the city. We offered two of our highly coveted and brightly painted vintage breezeblocks as prizes.
Cross-promotion with sponsor MiniMaterials and fellow preservation activist TinyJane (Jane Jacobs) created palpable and relevant synergy around all three brands. View our multi-week instagram campaign that ran before, during and after the event to see the teasers and the winners!
MiniMaterials provided the 1:12 scale Vista Vue breezeblock for the contest, which could only be acquired by attending one of the educational or social events early in the week. Hundreds of blocks were distributed to fans. Each block was temporarily affixed to a yellow card with instructions for how to engage in one of the contests.
Contestants submitted photos of the miniature block in a variety of creative situations. Watch our Instagram Story highlights to see how we incorporated Doge and other miniatures in this scrappy and informal campaign directed at the millennial demographic. It was well received and created much engagement, good will and cross-pollination between brands.