International input: Follow the Pictonauts

For this year's Zürcher Theater Spektakel, the Zurich-based communications and design agency TBS Identity suggested something special to the festival management: For once, the campaign motif for the international gathering of independent theaters on Zurich's "Landiwiese" was to be created as part of a specially launched art project. On the website www.pictonauts.theaterspektakel.ch, illustrators from all over the world created a work of art together. Yuka Katagiri from Tokyo, Stefan Marx from Hamburg, Marcus Oakley from London and Beni Bischof from St. Gallen made the start. The four of them met virtually on the Pictonauts platform for two weeks in March and each drew a single intercontinental illustration, which will serve as visual recognition of the 2012 festival in various media. In a second phase, the four Pictonauts invited artist friends to join them in drawing, who in turn invited their drawing friends, and so on. The art then became the visuals for the campaign. pan