Site Specific Season

Illustration in the physical world

For any creative it's a thrill to see what's been confined to your screen or sketchbook take on a life of its own out in the world. In-situ illustration - on the side of a building or in the windows of a shop - amplifies this feeling by becoming part of how people experience a street or a space. For the illustrators commissioned on these projects, working at this scale comes with big kicks but also much to consider for maximum splash. Alix-Rose Cowie talks to three illustrators making life-sized - or supersized - work that stops people in their tracks.

For brands competing for attention on the visually-overloaded high street or in busy shopping malls, their window displays need to delight passers-by and tempt them inside. The most successful brands have made their seasonal window displays an occasion?enlisting top artistic talents who create show-stopping scenes.   

High-end store Selfridges contacted London-based Japanese/Austrian illustrator Lena Yokoyama after seeing a large-scale illustration she did while Google?s Artist in Residence, installed on hoardings outside King?s Cross Station. Initially they commissioned her to create three window wraps, a smaller project to conceal the install of one of their famous window displays. After that went well, they asked her to collaborate on 3D window displays of her own to highlight three features of their flagship Oxford Street store: two restaurants and a pop-up skateboarding bowl. 

Yokoyama?s black and white illustrations were printed large-scale onto cardboard cut-outs placed at incremental distances to create depth; an illusion of looking into a bustling restaurant or swirling skatepark, while incorporating real product into the paper worlds. ?Illustration has always been a lovely way to bridge the space between the public and the art world,? she says. ?Illustration is a very accessible way to draw people into an environment. Bringing illustration into