Sunzen Grand Opening Invitation
Client: Sunzen Art Gallery
Year: 2019
Agency: Hamazaki Wong Marketing Group

Role
Art & Visual Direction
Design & Production Lead
Production Planning

The Sunzen Art Gallery wanted to increase visibility among recent arrivals from mainland China, by showcasing its unique blend of Chinese art and culture with a contemporary English flair. A grand opening event was being planned within 3 weeks to show art is a multi-sensory experience.

The ask was to design a bilingual event invitation to showcase the traditional art and culture that Sunzen has to offer while keeping the existing branding visuals and modern aesthetics. The concept of experiencing art through 5 human senses: sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing was developed by the Creative Director.

The invitation was a tri-fold brochure that had six panels, with five panels featuring each of the five senses and the final panel displaying the event details. All panels had both English and Chinese copy, carefully crafted to work together in a modern layout that is pleasing to the eye.

I identified 5 unique Sunzen-featured art categories: porcelain art, wood-carved Mala beads, premium-grade incense, aged bingcha (raw tea cake/disc) and guzheng. I paired each of the 5 “sensory” panels with the identified art category and distinct colour, and they work in perfect harmony.

The logo creative (by Bam Communications) was inspired by traditional Chinese architectural window design, so I took this design approach and created a sleeve with a cut-out of the gallery logo on the front. The sleeve was solid black to focus on the colour inside the sleeve, through the cutout. This demonstrated the idea of seeing art through Sunzen Art Gallery. The invitation was designed such that it can be folded in a number of ways, allowing different colour (art) to be featured when inserted back into the sleeve.

The result? It was a big success and very well received! A few different companies had reached out for invitation and branding design because they like the design for Sunzen Invite so much. I was also awarded the Bronze prize in the Multicultural – Brochures/Print Collateral category in the 2019 Marketing Awards (https://marketingawards.strategyonline.ca/winners/winner/2019/?e=81205&w=Sunzen+Art+Gallery+Invitation).