In this week’s blog we feature the work of good friend and long time collaborator with The Halo Group, Tristan Cochrane who recently designed and built an installation for Bombay Sapphire and advertising agency McCann. The project was part of the gin distiller’s festive marketing campaign. This behind the scenes feature explores some of the fascinating materials and processes he uses in his work.
Tristan Said:
“The client had a very specific and thorough visual identification brief which included amongst other things their brand colour schemes, a clean cut style and an attention to using real materials as often as possible.
I made the shelves from real marble. Budget constraints were overcome by glueing 2 marble tiles together and working with that as a material. This was a very, very delicate process as I had to cut, transport and fit the marble in a tight build window.
The edging of the shelves was constructed from solid copper bar (5mmx20mm) and brush polished to a satin finish. As copper oxidises very quickly I had to treat the material prior to use in a cleaning bath and then I sprayed the product with military grade lacquer to finish. The spray is used for stopping shells and firearms from rusting in storage. This delicate process meant that everything needed to be handled with plastic gloves for protective purposes. The unit was very large, difficult to fit into a basement setting and with only a few mm of clearance in the ceiling there was no margin for error. Every detail had to be thought through from start to finish about how to approach the installation whilst ensuring the design did not lose the overall impact.
The wood I used was white ash, which is the same as used in baseball bats as it is very stable even over the long and precise distances required for the frame. The shape of the wooden grid structure made the glueing process very challenging and all the jointed sections were angled connections and required special bracing for every joint. Getting this right was quite a feat for a project of this scale.
The back box feature was sprayed for a perfect finish, and was quite a complicated size and surface to spray. The foliage dressing was made with real and faux botanicals including real juniper, dried lemon and orange, cinnamon and eucalyptus.
McCann and Bombay Sapphire were very happy with the end product and reported that sales were up 230% during the activation.
