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Sketching Structures

Posted on May 2, 2021May 4, 2021 By Hey You

In 1965, my first year as a free­lance adver­tising artist, I was willing to take on any artistic assign­ment. A few times I said yes to a field of art that I was not taught. Archi­tec­ture was never my interest but one day I was driven east of Sacra­mento to do some on-location sketches of plans for a new housing complex called Eldo­rado Hills.

Had they shown me exam­ples of what they expected, I am sure I would have declined this assign­ment. I was able to accom­plish some­thing but I, and they, knew they had the wrong person. I wasn’t charging much in those days, so they paid me for what I did.

Above is my job sheet as I first began free-lancing (four years at 728 Mont­gomery Street, SF)…and this photo taken at my visit to the Dean Stone & Hugo Stec­catti Photo Studio.


In 1973, there again was an assign­ment of a struc­ture. This time I was at my drawing board and I liked the subject. That was when I illus­trated a play area for one of the first arcade video games, Pong. The client was Atari.

There were a few more assign­ments when I touched on struc­tures – – simple ones (like point of purchase store displays).

But it was many years later, when the medical adver­tising agen­cies needed exhibit areas designed for trade-shows, that I began to enjoy this corner of my work.

Often I was asked to just rough-out ideas so that the product team could meet and plan basic ideas.

For the Acti­vase® exhibit shown below, there was a virtual reality game offered. I was given no visual refer­ence. That game was also avail­able at the Embar­cadero Center, just down the street from my One Lombard loca­tion. So one evening, Richard and I walked there, signed up, donned the VR head­gear and began a compe­ti­tion. (I won.) I also made a drawing of the game room. The next day the drawing was my guide for my sketch of the inte­rior of the Acti­vase structure.

Activase
Activase 
CETUS Oncology Unit
CETUS Oncology Unit 
Misc Show Displays
Misc Show Displays 

Knowing that my render­ings of these trade-show exhibits were actu­ally built, gave me a sense of being a part of a show! It would have been great to visit the final results.

SYNTEX
SYNTEX 
SYNTEX PLAY Naprosyn
SYNTEX PLAY Naprosyn 
SYNTEX PhotoOp Exhibit
SYNTEX PhotoOp Exhibit 
SYNTEX COUNTRY
SYNTEX COUNTRY 
SYNTEX Conventions
SYNTEX Conventions 
Glaxo Welcome
Glaxo Welcome 
Genetech Show Display
Genetech Show Display 
Cytovene Plan View
Cytovene Plan View 
Avivase Exhibit
Avivase Exhibit 
Activase VR Pod
Acti­vase VR Pod 
Activase Pryamid OMNI Theater
Acti­vase Pryamid OMNI Theater 

Corpo­rate conven­tions were a very lucra­tive busi­ness. ​“Were”, because Covid-19 has closed them down. The prod­ucts exhib­ited created consumer interest and also investments.

The large conven­tion centers collected atten­dance revenue. The atten­dees brought money to hotels, restau­rants, shops, and the hospi­tality industry. Corpo­rate conven­tions timed to coin­cide with the trade-shows, extended the visits to the loca­tion for more than a one-day stay.

Now, more and more, events with large venues are begin­ning to open for public gathering.

Ann Thompson


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