Live illustration for brand activations
As a brand activation, live illustration works because it produces a queue and an asset at the same time. Rui Charnock draws fifty to seventy co-branded guest portraits in a three-hour session in Portugal, each taking two to three minutes, each handed to a person who then carries it around the space for the rest of the day.
The mechanism is not subtle and it is not new: people will stand still for a long time to watch someone draw, and they will not throw away a drawing of themselves.
What an activation produces, per hour
| Hours booked | Portraits handed out | People watching | Files delivered |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 50–70 | Several hundred | 50–70, same week |
| 6 | 100–140 | Most of the room, twice | Plus 2–3 larger illustrations |
| 9 | 150–210 | — | Plus 4–6 larger illustrations |
What the queue is worth
A portrait takes two to three minutes, and the person waiting spends most of that watching. Two or three others watch over their shoulder. That is dwell time in a space where the median interaction is measured in seconds, and it happens without anyone being asked to scan anything.
The number to hold in your head is fifty to seventy portraits in three hours. Add the watchers and the activation has had a few hundred people standing in it, voluntarily, for minutes rather than moments.
Co-branding the artwork honestly
The paper can carry a mark — a logo blind-embossed or printed at the foot of the sheet, a colourway pulled toward the brand palette, a stamp on the reverse. Supplied stock is fine as long as it takes a wash, and I will test it before the day rather than on it.
What does not work is putting the brand where the drawing goes. A portrait with a logo across it stops being a portrait and starts being a flyer, and flyers get left on the floor. The whole value of the format is that the thing is worth keeping.
Assets, and how fast they arrive
Every portrait is photographed before it is handed over, so the activation produces a set of images as well as a set of moments. High-resolution files land within the same week.
For a longer booking I will usually also make two or three larger illustrations of the space itself, which is what tends to get used in the wrap deck — a queue of people drawn from behind reads better than a photograph of the same queue.
Product launches, store openings and press days
The same booking works for an evening launch, a store opening or a press day, and the only variable that really matters is how long the audience is in the room. Under two hours and the queue becomes the story in a bad way.
Three hours is the shortest activation worth doing. Six is where it stops feeling like a stunt and starts feeling like part of the room.
Send the brief and the run of show. I will tell you what three hours will actually produce.
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Check your date
Tell me when and where. If I am free, I will come back with what it costs and roughly how the day would run — usually the same evening.