ABOUT

Taylor Wimpey submitted plans for 1,730 homes and a range of new community facilities on the disused Wisley Airfield site. As part of their submission , working with Barton Willmore (now Stantec), the idea of a children’s book came to fruition as a creative and engaging way to communicate the Vision for the site to a young demographic.

Concept:
A story of adventure, excitement, sustainability and family. The vision for Taylor Wimpey’s new development, Wisley Airfield, creatively told through a children’s book to create excitement and wonder amongst youngsters in Guildford. Focus on all the versatility the new development could bring, portrayed through the eyes of the main character “Albie”. Topics like sustainability, health & safety and wellbeing are weaved throughout a thoughtful narrative, whilst capturing Taylor Wimpey’s vision for Wisley Airfield. Applying Todorov’s theory of Equilibrium to help structure the narrative, the Characters are in a state of Equilibrium, then an event occurs to disrupt the initial equilibrium, and finally a new but different equilibrium is restored at the end of the narrative.

Execution:
Early stages involved a story boarding workshops with Taylor Wimpey where we considered, Characters, narrative and illustrative style.
A hand drawn aesthetic became a clear focus, which led us to illustrating on procreate in order to use the sheer versatility of brushes and pressure control on the apple pencil. Illustration played a vital role in bringing Taylor Wimpey vision to life in a way that was immediate to the reader. Careful consideration of colour and language helped the narrative and distilled complex, technical topics into something more digestible for the younger demographic.

Results:
The book was received incredibly well by the client who hopes to use it as a tool for engagement on future projects to continue communication with a younger demographic.
Antonis Pazourou, Community and Green Infrastructure Manager for Taylor Wimpey, said: “We are deeply proud to have collaborated on this innovative book as part of our community- focused approach to this development. “We know that moving home can be a worrying time for children so we hope that this story provides reassurance and helps children to visualise the exciting new community that we are proposing, including the many benefits that it will bring to new and existing residents.”