Hargrave St. Market – Visual and Social Expressions
As part of Winnipeg’s True North Square, Hargrave St. Market is the latest and most substantial addition to Winnipeg’s food scene. The economic vision for the space was established and directed by True North Real Estate Development and designed by Montreal-based firm GHA Design Studios. The challenge presented to 26 Projects was to creatively communicate and represent an innovative and entirely locally-focused food hall that would resonate with an audience, first within a digital environment, well before the opening of the physical space.
Photos by Pauline Boldt.
Activating a Downtown Food Experience
26 Projects was first approached to visually represent and convey to a growing city, a completely innovative food concept. Our intention from the start was to communicate what the development could offer, but most importantly, to accompany a curious audience through a process as the space was being built. Hargrave St. Market’s interior quality and brand identity resonates an attitude of contemporaneity and familiarity, namely through a focus on celebrating local food entrepreneurs and chefs. This needed to come through in how we developed the brand’s visuals and strategic announcement to a new or unfamiliar social audience.
A strong strategic foundation was developed for the announcement and on-going presence on new social media channels, communicating the unique offerings and inspirational stories of each of the eight, dynamic, locally renowned vendors who would be activating the food hall.
Communicating for a Collective
Beyond still photography, a short film was developed with the purpose of stepping inside the lives of each of the contributing chefs and vendors – to showcase their personalities, their brick and mortar spaces, and their interaction with the food to be showcased at the hall. 26 Projects continues to handle all art direction, photography, digital content creation and strategy, as well as social engagement campaigns for Hargrave St. Market. The videos were developed alongside the production company May Contain Studios.
