Nicky Dyer
UX UI and visual designer
case study
Know your night skies campaign
The challenge —
Space Place at The Carter Observatory in the Botanic Gardens Wellington is a wonderful place of learning, fun and events. Many different audiences come for a wide range of eclectic events such as; movies, planetarium shows, educational programmes, corporate events, music gigs, courses about the stars, to learn about science and space or to enjoy the interactive exhibits.
Space Place is suitable for all ages, there is something for everyone.
The team were on a mission to let the public know that there is a lot to learn about our unique southern skies and it needn’t be boring or difficult to learn more.
The approach —
Space Place were on a mission to help people learn about the night sky.
So we created a campaign around the proposition ‘Know Your Night Skies’.
Starting with a simple constellation, there are so many fun ones to learn, from rabbits to unicorns and more. We supported each constellation with a factoid, (the real story) and extended the invitation to learn more, by coming to Space Place!
The campaign delivery was a mix of bus backs and shelters, print mags and newspaper advertising and we went to town via our website and social channels.
Collaborators — Jason Burge, Marketing | Space Place
Retail packaging for Space Place.
The constellation we’re focussing on here is Gemini. We give a clue ‘it’s a twin set’ and using a fun join the dots approach ask our audience to join the dots and discover the constellation. Makes our merchandise packaging an interactive game — and even a reusable item!
Outdoor interactive advertising
We’ve had a lot of fun, customising our advertising around what was is actually IN the sky during the time the ads where shown.
Know your night skies — hook line and sinker.
Here we see a riff on the idea of the phrase a “hook, line and sinker”. During September Mauis hook, the pointers and the southern are all visible in our night skies at the same time, we played around with their format for the ads, but supported this with quickfire animations showing people how to find the real constellations and asterisms in the sky.
We produced a range of outdoor PVC banners for advertising with glow in the dark dots for night time so car lights would shine on the banners.
Merchandise
T-shirts for Space Place featuring various constellations, planets or the moon.
Left: “It’s just a passing phase — she’ll get over it” [the cycle of the moon]
Right: “My best friend” — Canis Major one of Orion the hunters dogs.
Social
We did a series of animated ads all around the central premise of helping people engage with the night sky. We used simple to see/find constellations and had a lot of fun with story-telling.