Idea catalog - Ideas: The great Neuland 2016
So, the catalog is at the printer! Great. Once again, everyone is relieved that we managed to present the entire Neuland product range in a way that is as appealing and reader-friendly as possible, all within approximately 150 pages. And once again, it was a difficult start. The 2015 superhero catalog had received a great deal of praise and attention, and we were now wondering... What could we do for the sequel with a similarly strong theme? Perhaps one of the new products? For example, there should be those great new markers that allow you to draw white on black.
Just arrived: First samples of the new product from Neuland.
Guido Neuland suggested thinking about “Thinking out of the box”.
Hm. Well. (If the boss says so, I guess you have to…)
Patricia, Bastian, and Thies talked on the phone more often, brainstormed, and sent each other little sketches. But nothing quite clicked yet. And time was running out…
During a meeting in Hamburg, Thies finally remembered an illustrated series in a daily newspaper magazine and that the idea for these illustrations had been shamelessly copied from Saul Steinberg . When he showed Bastian and Patricia Steinberg's famous drawing with the cardboard box , it was clear: something like this could work. (It did turn out a little differently, but nevertheless, we hereby bow down to one of the greatest and most inspiring illustrators of the 20th century. Thank you for everything, Saul Steinberg. That's the way it should be.)
So we took a whole bunch of Novario boxes – don't worry, there are still some in stock – and looked at what we could do with them and the white marker.
A first and very simple idea was the drawing on the theme of "delivery service". As you can see, it could easily be transferred to the Novario.
For other themes and motifs, we had to fudge things a bit. The projector, for example, was supposed to be on wheels – so we added two markers – and that's exactly how it ended up being photographed. You can see it at the very back of the catalog, in the "Workshop Furniture" chapter. Here's the preliminary sketch:
And not every box made it into the catalog. The highly decorative tangram square on four Novarios was, as mentioned, very decorative, but a bit off-topic. So we're showing it here, if only to illustrate the minor perspectival challenges of such illustrations. You can't just draw a square on the boxes... The actual drawing is a slightly skewed trapezoid that only appears square from the correct camera angle.
And such problems occurred frequently. Even the gentleman at the coffee table – who is also only visible here – could never have drunk from the cup, which was actually quite distorted. And a ball that appears round would, upon closer inspection, at best pass for a football. Just like in real life: it's all a matter of perspective.
Once all the Novarios were painted, and some were even cut and bent, they were packed into a large shipping box and sent to Eichenzell. There, they were photographed in the perfect light. But that's another story – you can see it in the catalog. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed crafting them. Let us know what you think! We'd love to hear from you.
