Pema Hegan was anxiously watching the weather forecast yesterday.
The managing director of Rethink Toronto had spent the past two months developing a marketing stunt for today’s re-launch of the alternative weekly magazine Eye Weekly as The Grid. The project involved an estimated 50 artists creating sidewalk chalk drawings throughout downtown – making the prospect of rain slightly unnerving.
The weather remained clear, however, and Torontonians awoke this morning to the results of what Hagen describes as a citywide “art project” that saw artists work throughout the night to create a series of pieces connecting The Grid’s distribution boxes to each other and to interesting merchants like coffee shops and book stores throughout the downtown core.
“We wanted to focus on a really spectacular way to celebrate the first issue,” said Hagen. “The concept is that The Grid connects with Toronto and its inhabitants in really interesting ways, and we wanted to find a way to bring that to life visually.”
The stunt is being supported by a print ad in the Toronto Star featuring the Twitter hashtag-referencing headline “#WestEndWins. #EastEndWins. Discuss.” Rethink was also charged with creating The Grid’s branding and visual identity, which includes the publication’s logo and street box designs.
