My Mom, Leanne Tuntland-Wiebe, has been doing Taking it to the Streets concerts for 3 years now. This is the first year that she is also a City Councillor. She wanted to tie a bunch of local events together with hers, and make it a huge celebration day for the City.
Conversations started out casually, just talking about the idea and what it could be called. 'Taking it to the Streets' is the title of a song, so I thought fitting to suggest 'Come Together', a Beatles track on Abbey Road.
It seemed perfect. It's a bunch of independent local events coming together to make the first big post-COVID city-wide event, but beyond that, we haven't been able to 'come together' in a year and a half; and surely we're all longing to do so. On top of that, division and strong differing opinions have been running rampant since COVID started—what if the title of this day-long event could also be a call to make amends and love our neighbours?
Seeing posters and streetlight banners telling the city residents to 'come together' makes my heart happy. I think that should almost be the phrase of the year, even globally. It's what we need right now. Maybe this event, and hearing the name over and over might just soften a few hearts toward friends, neighbours, or family that they've struggled to get along with since March of 2020. I certainly have some of that amending to do yet (at the time of writing this), and perhaps you do too.
Anyway, the rest of the ideas seemed to flow fairly naturally. Sidewalk Days is part of the event, and Come Together is on Abbey Road, which has one of the most famous album covers of all time—the Beatles crossing Abbey Road's crosswalk. Why don't we paint the Abbey Road crosswalk and do a photoshoot for the event? Amy of Swift Shoe then suggested using a family with a wheelchair to show that the events are family friendly and accessible for all.
My hope is that having the Abbey Road-styled crosswalk on Central Ave will be a promotional tool to remind the community of the event when they drive or walk over it.
Thanks to The Landing Studio for taking the perfect photo for the poster.
Below you'll find the poster, photos of streetlight banners (the first I've ever designed!), digital billboard images, and some social media promo images.
A large thanks to Bumper to Bumper and The City of Swift Current for allowing me to play a part in this exciting day (and name it!). I'm hoping a few people read this or see my logo on the poster—because I donated all the design work. (And I'd do it again!)
First time I've ever designed streetlight banners. What an honour to do it for the first big, collaborative, post-COVID event in my favourite city!
A couple digital billboard images that appear one after the other in rotation on both City Hall's digital sign and Sign Here's digital sign.
Social Media images to swipe through for the event.
