Self Preserving
A large body of work for LUSH for their 'Self Preserving' campaign, which revolves around their use of natural ingredients to help conserve their products. Owen was brought in as part of a collaboration to bring the campaign to life in store windows across Europe.
For the initial stages of the campaign, Lush commissioned the fantastic artist Charlotte Day to illustrate a series of flowers and natural ingredients that are found in their products. Owen then hand-crafted the illustrations into 3D paper structures, working directly from Charlotte’s hand-rendered designs, and used textured paper to give the final aesthetic an authentic finish.
Client
LUSH
Set Design
Owen Gildersleeve
Electronics & 3D Design
Thomas Forsyth
Photography
Jon Aaron Green
The intricate displays were then featured across a series of fifteen window displays throughout Europe. To create a special hero installation for its flagship London store on Oxford Street, 3D designer Thomas Forsyth was brought into the project. Thomas added a layer of movement to the display, creating a set of bespoke moving head mechanisms that he 3D printed using a biodegradable polymer, and fitted with servo motors. These were then attached to the handcrafted stems and bases, and decorated with paper heads and foliage inspired by Charlotte Day's illustrations.
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Many hours were spent experimenting with different algorithms and code structures so that we could give the flowers more believable and animated movements, with less of a predictable and robotic feel. We’ve actually ended up creating a program in which the flowers randomly generate their own movements, so when it feels like one of the flowers has turned to look at you, it kind of has.
- Thomas Forsyth
Alongside this flagship store installation, Owen also created fifteen sets of large-scale paper flowers, which were mounted on wooden bases for support. These were then shipped out to Lush's key stores around Europe to be displayed in their windows. A detailed multi-layered papercut artwork was also created, featuring some of the key flowers from Charlotte Day's artwork.
The illustrations were displayed on light boxes in all of Lush's 300 stores across Europe, as well as in their online and social media campaigns.
© Owen Gildersleeve 2023