Project Overview

Only moments from the idyllic Brighton waterfront in Melbourne, Pillar+Tide is a boutique luxury residential development where every facet of modern life intersects seamlessly. Shaped by award-winning architects Carr, with landscaping by Acre, The Pillar+Tide brand identity, campaign materials and hoarding for the prominent corner site along Male Street and Black Street, were each crafted to reflect the wonderful quality and duality of the residences themselves: a place where past meets future, indoors meets outdoors, community meets intimacy and time meets timeless.

Organisation

Fortis

 

Team

Head of Marketing – Kristina Granberg
Design Director – Em Matthews
Content Marketing Manager – Liz Keene
Designer – George Hatton
Render Artist – Mr.P Studios
Still Life Photographer – Tanya Zouev
Still Life Stylist – Kendra McCarthy
Signage - Signarama St Kilda

Project Brief

The physical form of Pillar+Tide achieved a rich sense of timelessness and permanence, both in function and design, with the use of robust natural materials and an unmistakable return to quality. The Fortis creative team was tasked with creating an equally distinctive hoarding design as work progressed, integrated into the wider marketing campaign.

Specifically, the hoarding needed to exude the outstanding quality of Pillar+Tide whilst being executed in a way that would cut through the noise of the highly competitive off-the-plan market in the recently re-zoned suburb of Brighton.

Project Innovation/Need

The purpose of the Pillar+Tide site hoarding was to ignite curiosity from those who would travel past the prominent corner site.

To do it, the design concept was built around a story-based approach with subject matter (renders, still life and portraiture) and lighting that moves from dawn at the far left of the hoarding to dusk at the far right. In doing so, it demonstrates the passage of time through our still building, perfectly reflecting our brand positioning ‘Still+Life’ and name ‘Pillar+Tide’ itself.

The photographic treatment equally reflects the broader brand positioning, pairing a ‘pillar’ of the raw robust materials of the built form, with a contrasting object that tells a more personal story. In each pairing, you’ll notice the stone and backdrop remain unchanged (Pillar) but, over time, the contrasting element tells a personal story (Tide).

As a slight aside, the hoarding’s still life imagery centres around enjoying a book on the outdoor terrace. Mid-morning. The book is ‘Ornament and Crime’, an essay criticising ornament in useful objects i.e. ‘form follows function’. In the essay, Loos explains his philosophy, describing how ornamentation can have the effect of causing objects to go out of style and thus become obsolete. It struck him that it was a crime to waste the effort needed to add ornamentation, when the ornamentation would cause the object to soon go out of style. With the architectural design for Pillar+Tide very monolithic and clean, the book choice was very deliberate.

Design Challenge

The design challenge was to create a hoarding design that was true to the Pillar+Tide brand, whilst capturing the attention of passers-by at a time when there was considerable noise in the Brighton market.

Recently rezoned to encourage higher density living, Brighton is a hive of cranes and hoardings, with multiple boutique luxury developments all vying for the attention of the downsizer market. Rather than attempt to shout loudest, our response was the exact opposite: understated, considered and quietly assured.

Like an art gallery, the Pillar+Tide hoarding was stripped back to the purest of information. We avoided the typical development self-congratulatory hyperbole, and instead presented a calm, understated design to pique the curiosity of our art loving audience to learn more.

Effectiveness

Launching at a time when Melbourne’s apartment market confidence was at an all-time low, the Pilllar+Tide brand used emotive still life photography to successfully cut through the highly saturated Brighton market and resonate with our target demographic to achieve higher than average prices per sqm at sale time.

“The Pillar+Tide campaign set itself apart by providing a non-real estate based positioning. The imagery captures personal moments that our Brighton audience could relate to, which had a simple yet powerful influence over their perception of the project overall.”

Alby Tomassi, Tomassi & Co.