‘Aquilo’ is a brand integrated corporate art piece which was developed for the financial advisory division of Momentum, a large corporate who deal primarily in financial advise, based in Pretoria, South Africa. ‘Aquilo’ was inspired by Aquilo, the Roman deity of the wind, as well as the Aquilofers, the administrators of the Roman army.

As a manifestation of the wind, Aquilo was able to bring life-giving rain, full sails, and remind humankind of something greater than themselves. Aquilo is also symbolic of both direction and change. Aquilofirs were the financial planners of the Roman army. They carried winged standards, and ensured that all administrative and economic issues were dealt with effectively and competently. By marrying these two closely related concepts, we have been able to develop a corporate art piece which communicates the Momentum Financial Planner ideals of excellence, competence, leadership and movement, all housed within a financial theme.

‘Aquilo’ is a superb example of how more abstract concepts, corporate subtleties, and cultural idiosyncrasies can be effectively and comprehensibly communicated through artwork. The result is a bold, inspirational, and evocative art piece which has become iconic of the individuals who belong to the Momentum Financial Planning division. Similarly, each individual instance of derived brand collateral stands as a mark of excellence for the division.

We began the process of developing this corporate art piece with pen and ink. Contrary to our usual approach, we progressed very quickly into detail, as we wished to attain a richness and fineness in the appearance of the artwork.

On our initial canvas, we worked in some rock texturing and washed out colours to prime the artwork for the contrasting ink, which would be heavily layered. Up close, the ink would look as though it had been set in stone.

This is the finished artwork. Many layers of mixed media have been worked onto the canvas, with the intention of more traditional media and techniques forming the base of the artwork, enhanced by numerous affects applied to each individual element. The finished artwork will ultimately serve as an award for top Momentum financial advisors.

During every step of developing this piece, we have been careful to record everything we have done, and we also maintained a digital schematic version of the artwork. This has enabled us to translate the wing structure into a 3D CAD model, which was then digitally sculpted into a floating trophy. It has also allowed us to have the entire painting animated as an AV sequence for the official Aquilo launch.

The Aquilo Seal signifies the seriousness, confidentiality, and sophistication with which all of the Momentum Financial Planners conduct business. In true Glyph style, the dynamic nature of our approach to visual communication allowed us to surprise our clients with a signet stamp of their own, which Momentum’s own Aquilofirs could use on certain documents. The iconic nature of the seal also lent itself to the creation of a simple graphic icon for the Momentum Sales Division.

One of the most beneficial aspects of our balance between traditional and digital art is that we were able to keep a record of every layer and every colour we utilised to establish the hierarchy of this brand division. Only certain individuals will be exposed to the full detail of the finished product, but we have been able to alter colours for Gold, Silver, and Diamond certificates. We have also developed a very simple line work version for further brand collateral.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Recent Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.