"Dalemain - The Most Beautiful English Garden"
Branding & Design for NHK TV Documentary Series
[Creative Direction, Design Production]
Client: NHK Cosmomedia Europe
We branded with Dalemain's iconic character, a red squirrel that represented a tour guide and The Lake District atmosphere.
The branding became popular and contributed to further promoting the documentary.
The documentary achieved extended series from 2 to 8 episodes and a long-term slot and won NHK's internal award.
*Background photos and text descriptions differ from the actual documentary.
The 4K documentary features Dalemain Mansion & Historic Gardens and the English lake district.
The vision of the documentary was to create a "Fairy tale for grown-ups" atmosphere. The navigator of the documentary was Dalemain's iconic red squirrel that takes viewers into "a book of Dalemain".
The target audience was from young families to the mature generation, so we considered the character friendly but not too cartoony.
We researched Peter rabbit's tale and the lake district culture and history. Then, we developed art direction in warm painterly texture, linking the natural atmosphere and the documentary's story concept.
We directed subtle natural movements, such as a vibrating nose, flexible front arms, a curly tail and quick head turns. A red squirrel guide stole viewers hearts. The design package also includes; Series of navigation maps of the Dalemain gardens: The 2.5-D parallax garden map, lower 3rd template.
*Background photos and text descriptions differ from the actual documentary.
We also built the time-based deliverable list that covered the 4-months production period. We also created templates and layered graphics kits for the post-production so that the team could also adapt graphics at the online editing. The creative workflow helped flawless communication throughout production, fulfilling changes and the challenging filming schedule due to lockdowns.
