2019 Award-Winning Campaign
I am extremely grateful to be given an opportunity to create and develop the launching campaign for The SCN Coalition. The incredible collaboration and partnership with the account manager Laurie Redman-Steen led to The SCN Coalition winning multiple National Awards such as National NAMA Award For Overall Public Relations Programs and Golden ARC National Award of Merit for Unique Tactics And Executions. Amongst the National Finalist were BASF, Merck Animal Health, ABS Global and many others.
Phone Version
Services
Art Direction
Print design
Digital content development
Animation & Motion design
The SCN Coalition
After 20 years of soybean farmers using the same source of resistance (PI 88788) to SCN, the nematodes are adapting, feeding and overcoming PI 88788. Unfortunately, this source of resistance is used in 95% of all commercial soybean varieties.
SCN Coalition is a public/checkoff/private partnership formed to help the agricultural industry speak with one voice about soybean cyst nematode (SCN) management. We partnered with the SCN Coalition to create a campaign that will make the American soybean farmers aware of the evolving problem.
Challenges & opportunities
The SCN Coalition relaunched at the Commodity Classic trade show (America’s largest farmer-led, farmer-focused convention and trade show). As this was its first appearance after 20 years there were no existing assets besides the logo. So I needed to create an identity from scratch. It was vital to acknowledge the seriousness of the soybean cyst nematode problem, while focusing on the aspirations for the Commodity Classic trade show. This became an opportunity to create a friendly and welcoming identity. We decided to portray the SCN problem through illustrations which later became the core visual for the coalition.
Media kit design approach
For the Commodity Classic trade show we created a media kit that the SCN Coalition used for their launch. I wanted to create a piece that feels contemporary and stand out without being flashy, a piece that people would like to explore and keep. The folder encompasses three infographics, inserts telling the story of the SCN Coalition, a trifold brochure and USB flash stick with print and video materials. The design of the folder itself tells a story of how rapidly SCN evolves and spreads in soybean fields.
behind the scene design
I developed custom soybean illustrations portraying the plants in different growth stages and icons help telling the story. The style I chose went to clear aesthetics based on vector technique with flat color and without textures or complex graphics.
The infographic design
The challenge here was to take the seemingly complicated and not that exciting content and to translate it into easy to understand infographics. All graphs, graphics and imagery were redesigned to better suit the visual identity. For those who avoid calculation and big numbers I conceived easy to digest math equations incorporating illustrations.
The trifold brochure
The difficulty for designing the trifold came from the need to develop a cohesive framework that could hold all of the content. The brochure is packed with content, but the layout offers multiple entry points for readers, sub-headers and highlights. The provided graphs were redesigned to suit the design aesthetic of the brochure.
Trifold front
Trifold back
Commodity Classic trade show
The SCN Coalition relaunched at the Commodity Classic trade show (America’s largest farmer-led, farmer-focused convention and trade show). For their booth we designed an 8 ft by 8 ft banner that covered almost the entire wall and an island where visitors could obtain information. Smaller banners were created and distributed to the SCN Coalition partners participating at the trade show.
To drive more traffic to the SCN Booth we decided to create a bingo card. Guests needed to get their bingo card stamped with numbers related to the SCN life cycle by visiting different Coalition partners. The prize was the quirky SCN hat “What’s your number?”
Animation design
Working closely with the account manager Laurie Redman-Steen it became clear that we needed to use as many multimedia channels as possible. I conceived a quirky animation transforming the main source of resistance PI 88788 into a superhero who protects the soybean plants. But after 20 years of using the same source of resistance, the nematodes adapt and overcome the protection which leads to lower soybean yields.
Initial storyboard sketches
Selected screenshots
How the soybean cyst nematode (SCN) problem evoled
The SCN Coalition recommendations
After creating the main animation we decided to make a shorter snippet with the SCN four recommendations.
Website design
The SCN Coalition website was developed by Graydient Creative agency. Collaborating closely with them I created the timeline design and icons used in the About US Page, and the digital content used in the Resource Page. The difficulty creating the timeline was figuring out how to combine different point in time related to two separate section – Discovery period and Responses – in a way that makes sense and fit the story we were trying to tell. To map the SCN Coalition journey I developer icons to emphasize the points which also allowed the viewer to skim through the timeline and find the information quickly. Once the visual identity was developed it was easy to start repurposing the content and apply it to various social media channels.
Measure The Success
Beginning with launch activities hosted at Commodity Classic in 2018, The SCN Coalition has demonstrated success getting the word out regarding the threat posed by SCN.
Website
Blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter
What does the future hold for the SCN Coalition?
The SCN Coalition was planning to participate at another big trade show Farm Progress Show. It was important to show the SCN Coalition partners what the future tent might look like so I created a 3D model and short animation visualizing our ideas.