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Homewood transit & web ads

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project brief

In 2019, the village of Homewood, Illinois, approached me about creating an advertising campaign to increase its awareness among Chicago residents seeking to move away from the bustle of the city to a welcoming suburb. For these ads, they wanted imagery and messaging that would appeal specifically to millennials and landed on the idea of something like a video game. I immediately suggested harkening back to video games from the 1990s such as The Legend of Zelda, The Secret of Mana, Double Dragon, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  They loved my initial references and ideas, and from there I brought landmarks from Homewood to life in 16-bit style. They provided me with ideas they wanted to highlight and I translated those into “onscreen” dialogue boxes.

These ads were seen on the Chicago L trains and train stations starting in early 2020.

Early concept sketches

follow-up campaign

With the pandemic shutting down much of Chicago by mid-2020, Homewood contacted me at the end of the year to help take this campaign online. I adapted and animated my original work into banner ads that the village could use for paid geo-targeted advertising across Chicago.