Botanical Traces

An open booklet with one large pencil drawing of a wide-crowned tree running across both pages, text set in columns around the trunk and under the branches.

Botanical Traces

Format

Illustration Series · Editorial

Location

London

Disciplines

Brand Strategy · Illustration · Editorial Design · Print Production

Role

Creative Strategist · Illustrator

Read less

Context

Magritti set out to grow its audience beyond the UK. From the sixth month, the studio widened its reach to Berlin and New York, then Copenhagen, Tokyo and Stockholm. It picked them on the expectation that the work would travel.

Tokyo responded most to the work. A pencil drawing of a Natal lily, seen at the Barbican Conservatory, took the highest engagement of any Magritti post to date. The subject had no connection to Tokyo, and the studio read the result as a response to the drawing.

The reading came from one post, so the studio built the drawing into a series with one edition for each journey. Three editions ran from city to desert, and the subject widened with the route, from plants to objects and animals along the way.

Strategy

Make the template Magritti's own, and change the place from one edition to the next, so it takes the work into cities the studio had not reached.

Execution

Drawing — Subjects met on the three journeys, drawn on location in pencil. The medium stayed the same from the first edition to the last.

Layout — Every edition runs the same masthead, marks each drawing with the time it was met and lists the route below. The arrangement changes each time.

Print — Magritti bound each edition as a saddle-stitched zine.

Read less

Context

Strategy

Make the template Magritti's own, and change the place from one edition to the next, so it takes the work into cities the studio had not reached.

Execution

Drawing — Subjects met on the three journeys, drawn on location in pencil. The medium stayed the same from the first edition to the last.

Layout — Every edition runs the same masthead, marks each drawing with the time it was met and lists the route below. The arrangement changes each time.

Print — Magritti bound each edition as a saddle-stitched zine.

Read less

Context

Strategy

Make the template Magritti's own, and change the place from one edition to the next, so it takes the work into cities the studio had not reached.

Execution

Drawing — Subjects met on the three journeys, drawn on location in pencil. The medium stayed the same from the first edition to the last.

Layout — Every edition runs the same masthead, marks each drawing with the time it was met and lists the route below. The arrangement changes each time.

Print — Magritti bound each edition as a saddle-stitched zine.

An open booklet on white paper, a pencil drawing of a broad-leaved plant on the left page and five paragraphs of text on the right.

A tablet running a drawing app, an unfinished pencil drawing of a long-horned antelope on screen and a stylus resting at the edge.

A sheet of five pencil drawings of trees and a plant, two loose outlines paired with two worked-up versions.

A page layout program open on a two-page spread, a photograph of a prickly pear on the left and a title with a dateline on the right, page thumbnails down the side.

Printed sheets and postcards fanned out on black, showing a drawing grid, a photographic page and two card fronts.

A close-up of two covers overlapping, showing red and blue title type and a black ink drawing on flecked uncoated paper.

Impact

Targeted distribution

The Madrid and Provence editions were run as campaigns through a Meta Business account, each on a different targeting logic. The Madrid edition was targeted on the drawing, with the audience extended to Tokyo, which had responded to the earlier post. The Provence edition was targeted on the subject and held the audience inside France, across Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Nice, close to the places drawn.

Managed performance

The Madrid edition returned 395 profile visits and 80 follows. The Provence edition returned 278 and 34. The edition led by the template converted more visits at the lower CPA, £0.10 against £0.15.