The National Trust for Historic Preservation partnered with Modern Phoenix and other Arizona-based preservation groups in 2014 to bring attention to their latest National Treasure, the Painted Desert Community Complex by acclaimed architects Richard Neurta and Robert Alexander. The purpose was to raise funds for the rehabilitation of the classic Mission 66-era National Park architecture. Since many of the design features have been covered up over the decades, the strategy of the illustration was to help citizens re-imagine the run down facility as a vibrant cultural and design asset in Arizona. Impressionistic color was used to evoke the spirit of the Painted Desert instead of the actual surface hues.
Since the entryway to the complex points directly west, I chose to frame the setting sun in the aperture between the two buildings. Showing more than just a sliver of the actual Painted Desert Park was not possible from this point of view, so I borrowed the buttes of the land to create the upward sweeping clouds, used them again in a reflection in the windows on the left, and wove them in as an easter egg in the staggered shop display shelves. The effect is almost as if you are seeing through the building to the hidden landscape beyond.
Artwork was scaled to adapt to a variety of aspect ratios including postcards, magnets, posters, brochures and a facebook event page. On the postcard's verso I designed an Arizona-shaped stamp with a star in the Painted Desert's location to indicate where a postage stamp would go. We used the Petrified Forest National Park's special green passport stamp and the Modern Phoenix sigil to create a limited-edition version of the postcard as gift for a fundraising event called "A Night of Neutra". The Park seal displayed the first day of issue.
White space plays an even more important role on the 16 X 20 poster. It was thriling to be able to use the font Neutraface by House Industries without a shadow of a doubt about it's appropriateness; Neutra's 60s-era font is used prominently on the building signage.
The substrate is a velvety soft watercolor paper. Beautifully saturated giclee color printing was performed by Phoenix Photo Lab. It was an honor to work on the project in support of our National Parks.
Beinlich Photography is responsible for the vintage source imagery used to create this illustration, since the park facility is in such different shape today. Learn more at http://modernphoenix.net/painteddesert.htm