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Titanic Museum Launches in Southampton

Posted by: Artistic Type

Date added: Tue 10 Apr 2012

Hand illustrated medieval stained glass window design by Jonathan Chadwick at Artistic Type sees the light of day.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the setting sail of the Titanic on its final voyage. It is also the day that the SeaCity Museum in Southampton opens to the public to tell the story of the people of the city, their fascinating lives and of their historic connections with the sea which can be traced back nearly 1000 years. The Artistic Type's involvement in the project involved the production of an illustration originally briefed nearly a year ago.

Jonathan was approached by London agency Wood McGrath about illustrating a medieval style stained glass window for the museum, featuring the life of a seafarer from the Dark Ages known as Bernard de Vire. The full brief detailed a requirement for a high resolution illustration to be produced measuring 3.2 metres high by 1.65 metres wide. This has been the largest commission that Jonathan has ever been asked to produce and involved a fair technical challenge considering he usually works at A3 size at most. Every panel was hand illustrated before being composed in Photoshop.

The design itself features elements which have survived from the era including Bernard's ale mug (shown by his feet), a jug featuring a bird (shown to his right) and also pieces of an original stained glass window design which inspired this installation. These elements are all displayed in a case below the installation.

The final design was then used as an illuminated display which integrated four Audio Visual screens. By producing a flat illustration for the background of the window as a whole, Jonathan then had to produce individual elements on layers which could then be animated by a third party - in this case, New Angle.

The result is an interactive display within the new museum that sympathetically harnesses the artistry and technology of the middle ages with cutting edge capabilities. The animated areas include sailing vessels which bob around in the waters at Southampton docks and then Bernard himself, who's eyes follow the text on the scroll before turning to watch the bird fly from the jug to his right and peck an apple from the tree.

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