I got a request from my “UX Design Director” that he wanted to create something for our “Industrial Design Director” who was leaving the company after 27 years. The request was “Lets ask the team to share anything they can think of – How great and memorable was working with John“. To inspire the team, we suggested them to wear or have something which “John” could resonate with and took a selfie, so that we could make a collage to present him as a Farewell Gift.
Will Miss You… John Bandringa
A picture which contains love, memories and bonding of 27 years.
BRIEF
PROBLEM
The idea was great but I soon realized that I would be getting random clicks from individuals, blurry images, lighting issues, funny poses and different camera angles.
All that could impact on the output and might not be executed the way we desired to be (No offense to my team with their photographic skills).
APPROACH
One of my hobby is “Photography” and with the time and experience, I become a semi-professional photographer and got my own studio. So I decided to bring the equipment and setup in my office.
After that my path was easy ( I guess what could go wrong 🙂 ), all I have to do was take photos of each of my team member with the props they brought with them on green screen.
ISSUE
High hopes soon ended up when some of my team members brought their props which were not as small or kind off as I was expecting, have a look at some of the pictures.
Also, couple of people in the team wouldn’t be available and I needed to give them the instructions about how to take their photos to be consistent with other pictures, I felt bad for “JIM Fullmer” (Fourth picture with white background) I had to specially asked him to bend on his knees, because of his awesome 6’5″ height (I wish, I would be that tall).
CHALLENGE
After the photo-shoot, I realized that how big the team were (34 people). My first question was, how I am going to fit all of my team into one photo and make it look good.
I could’t go too small as some of the props were small like a “Tea Cup”, which wouldn’t be recognizable for “John”, neither I could go big because of the team size. Another problem I encountered was the diverse individual heights and laying them in way that all look good in proportion.
OUTCOME
I took the approach of laying them horizontally and made a big strip, and kept the photo height to 7″x 120″ width (7 feet) which was enough the size to see the team with their props.
I made the photo black and white but kept the props to the original color to have more emphasis on the story each resonate with “John”.
RESULT
John’s reaction was speechless. The kind of feedback I always love to hear, couldn’t get better than when he said with full emotions WOW, AWESOME, AMAZING. Believe me, he almost cried!!
WE STILL MISS YOU – JOHN
