Set Designs – 10 Truly Incredible Examples

The Halo Group specialises in set construction & scenic construction. This week’s blog explores 10 truly incredible set designs from around the world and closer to home. 

Don’t Always Stick to the Script

The Claridges Christmas Tree is one of the most famous annual set designs in London. Each year a different designer creates their own interpretation of this iconic installation. Over the years the likes of Burberry’s Christopher Bailey, John Galliano and Dolche & Gabbana have offered their own vision to name a few. Dolche & Gabbana’s stunning design in 2013 offered a traditional take.

Others however haven’t always stuck to the script. John Galliano’s version flips tradition on its head with a  dramatic coral inspired design.

Christopher Bailey’s reimagined Christmas tree is both glamorous & bold with its umbrella inspired geometric shapes and luxurious gold finish.

These examples help to illustrate how thinking differently, using unconventional materials and using imagination in your set designs can create real drama and impact.

Create Immersive Set Designs 

“Immersive” is still a buzz word after all this time and for good reason. The best set designs are all about telling a story and the best way to get an audience involved is to make them part of the action. Sir Jony Ive, Marc Newson and Michael Howells’ interpretation of the Claridges’ Christmas tree is a case in point.

Here the trio have designed an environment that draws people in. The beautiful aesthetics and attention to detail are excellent examples of creative storytelling. Our set designs take a similar approach.

Scenic Production

Scenic painting is a great way to create ultra realistic finishes. When using certain materials simply isn’t practical for a temporary build, such as stone, concrete, metal etc scenic painting techniques can be used to create stunning set designs. For the Tokyo Nights project for Night Tales, The Halo Group built a series of temporary structures including The Love Hotel and a more traditional style Japanese structure at the award winning pop-up food, drink and entertainment venue. Scenic painting techniques were used to create each of our authentic Tokyo backstreet inspired set designs.

The Halo Group owns a unique set construction system which allows us to create incredible set designs for the film, tv and theatrical sectors. Our system can support heavy scenic production, lighting and equipment  and has many advantages over traditional scaffolding, truss work or stage braces. We used our system to create a range of scenic set designs for Tomb Raider: Live, an escape room challenge from Warner Bros and Metro-Golden-Mayer studios to celebrate the launch of their latest Tomb Raider title. Using set pieces loaned from the film makers, The Halo Group built 4 incredible set designs inspired by the movie. This is an excellent example of how scenic production can be used to create world class results.

Scenic painting can really bring festival activations to life. The Halo Group designed and built a Cold War Bunker at GlobalGathering Festival using our steel frame system. The Bunker, sponsored by Jaegermeister, boasted a 300 capacity festival venue set inside a specially designed temporary event structure. The Bunker is still one of our favourite set designs. We created the effect by cladding our structure with plywood and recreating its distinct ultra realistic concrete effect using scenic painting techniques, graffiti and living foliage to give it an aged look and feel.

Be Original

It’s a bit of a cliche but originality can really capture peoples’ imagination. Take Lee Broom’s Salone del Automobile installation. Lee recreated an Italian palazzo inspired set inside his studio’s delivery van during  Milan Design Week. When you consider the competition for designers at an event of this calibre you need to do something really different to stand out from the crowd and this clever set design really delivers! (no pun intended)

Go Natural

Living foliage and floral dressing can be used to great effect when creating set designs, even on a small budget. Our stage design for the BBC at Glastonbury Festival is a good example of what can be achieved for a small investment. The BBC Music tepee hosts many of the festival’s headline acts, who perform unplugged acoustic sets on the stage, for online coverage. To achieve the end result we dressed an illuminated Samba print backdrop with wisteria and a range of living foliage to create one of the festival’s most intimate set designs.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Dior Catwalk Show in Paris offers a world class example. We are huge admirers of the set designs created for the fashion industry. Here, an imposing scaffold frame temporary structure has been completely transformed with living foliage and floral dressing to create a truly jaw dropping set.

We hope you have enjoyed this edition of The Halo Group blog and our round up of some of our favourite set designs from around the world and closer to home.

See you next time at https://www.thehalogroup.co.uk/latest-news/