What is the story with the pink dinosaur? An often asked question and a fair one so I will attempt to explain his creation. Earlier this year we were challenged with coming up with a creative concept for our class website which would later follow through to our printed materials based around our end of year pitch. Most groups pitched some nicely designed but fairly standard work (ours included) and one group containing Robbie Field, Laura Fitzgerald and Harry Counihan amongst others came up with the idea of placing massive inflatable pink dinosaurs around Dublin city centre with the intention to grab people’s attention and really making a splash in the advertising world. We all agreed this was an awesome idea and voted it into being. Unfortunately, time, cost and China’s lack of cooperation began to scupper our plans so it was put to the groups again to pitch their version of how to proceed with the process along with their ideas for the invites and the booklets. We could abandon the dinosaur or we could keep him but we were told we needed a clear strategy.
My idea was to use large vinyl stickers in place of the balloons as these would be easier to source (I already knew where to get them) and wouldn’t be as likely to disappear. The pink dinosaur visual was also carried through on our invitations and booklets which both feature a die-cut dino on the front with bright pink showing through underneath. I used the photographs taken by the excellent Kate Murphy for our class website, lovingly crafted by Kevin Dolan. All design and layout work was carried out in InDesign and the booklets were printed by the excellent Michael Dwyer at Printpac.
The dinosaur stickers went out the morning prior to our pitch with myself, Robbie, Harry and Claire Gill in one car and Andy Kenny and Lisa Murphy in another. Both teams set off around 6am and we hit a total of 17 agencies and news websites around the city before anyone arrived in to work. The response that we got from employees at the agencies and the general public surpassed even our greatest expectations.
The pink dinosaur project was definitely an added stress during our end of year project but seeing it come to fruition made it all worthwhile. Much of the credit must go to unique mind of Robbie Field as it was his brainwave that led to it’s creation.
Click on any of the images below to see a slideshow of all the photos.
Daniel Flynn - Creative 