Horsing Around

 Advertising that really jumps out at you

This amazing 3D street art is in fact a unique and original form of advertising. It is the brainchild of FOAM agency, and in particular, their creative and talented intern Xavier Barrade.

It all came about when Xavier was introduced to a new band signed to RCA called Dry The River. It turned out the band loved the paper-craft work Barrade had done as part of his fictional contemporary art exhibition,  Retrospective. Award winning creative directors at Sony Music Entertainment and founders of the new company FOAM, Steve Milbourne and Phil Clandillon, challenged their Intern to create huge 3D posters and the result is, frankly, beautiful. Also a brilliant example of how amazing and effective Guerrilla Advertising can be...a subject that I find really interesting...

Xavier created a series of three-dimensional paper-craft hoses galloping out of thin air at B0 size. The flat poster background was screen printed by Bob Eight Pop; an award winning hand bench screen printing studio in East London, whilst the horses themselves were designed in 3D using Google Sketch Up. They were then printed out in their component parts and hand assembled. Each one taking around 35 hours to complete. No mean feat for Barrade but clearly a passion of his when you look at some of his other fantastic previous work and projects.

 Once the horses were finished they were hung around London in opportune places simply with some rusty nails. Continuing the lovely humble, hand crafted feel. Director Ricky Stanton made a short film showing passers'-by reacting to the posters whilst showcasing Dry The River's brilliant single 'No Rest'.

The project achieved great coverage in the art, design, creative and music press, and the Dry the River official video (an equally beautiful and creative video) shot up from 10,000 views to 256,000 views as a result of the publicity caused by the campaign

I absolutely love Dry The River's emotive, soulful and slightly wistful style, they only have 5 songs up on spotify though at the moment and a further 4 on their website...I want more! I reckon these guys are gonna be big, they deserve to do very well. They have that special something that really captures you and gets into your heart. If you like Mumford & Sons and that sort of chilled out, slightly raw vibes, definitely check these guys out. Among many other live dates planned they will be playing at Reading, Leeds and Bestival this year before setting off to Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and France. Catch them wherever you can...

Anyway, before I love and leave you again, back to Xavier Barrade; here are some images from his Retrospective project, amazing stuff...

Retrospective, 2010 - Ongoing, Digital images.
Retrospective is an art practice which only exists through pictures.

 

And another project; The Book

The Book is a photo book about the presence of books.

FOAM. Definitely keep an eye on these guys for some truly innovative advertising and marketing ideas; Also if there's any creative types out there; in particular people who like making things. People who have a passion for any creative disciplines, it could be art, design, programming, electronics, animation, writing... looks like FOAM offer some really amazing interning opportunities...check it out here

http://www.xavierbarrade.com/
http://www.foamagency.com/
http://www.drytheriver.net