The Wall of Wally is a unique and touching tribute to Wallace “Wally” Olins, one of the most charismatic and celebrated branding and corporate designers of the 20th century. Olins, who was awarded a CBE in 1999 and sadly passed away in April 2014, was a corporate identity and branding mastermind, who served as Chairman of Saffron Brand Consultants, and advised many of the world’s leading organisations on identity, branding, communication and related matters throughout his decorated career. These include 3i, Akzo Nobel, Repsol, Q8, The Portuguese Tourist Board, BT, Renault, Volkswagen, Tata and Lloyd's of London. He also acted as advisor to both to McKinsey and Bain, and pioneered the concept of the nation as a brand for a number of cities and countries.
The project was dreamt up by Maltese graphic designer Jamin Galea, who asked all practicing illustrators to celebrate the memory of the branding guru and get some much needed exposure by submitting their own readings of the iconic image of Olins reclining at his desk chair. The idea behind the project is that if the subject of all the illustrations is the same, users start to ignore the subject and just focus on the style they’re looking for. The results have been reliably eclectic.
The Wall of Wally is a unique and touching tribute to Wallace “Wally” Olins
Galea was given permission by Wally’s wife and Saffron to use his portrait, and there is no deadline for the project, so if you're an illustrator who fancies paying tribute to a legend whilst letting others see what you're made of, what are you waiting for? If you've already contributed to the project however, or are just interested in seeing the results in person, a Wall of Wally Exhibition is being staged at the Material art gallery on Rivington Street in London between Thursday the 4th and Saturday the 6th of June. The exhibition will feature more than 40 of the best submissions from the project, all of which will be on sale. All profits raised by the event will go to Ella's Homerun, a safe house in London for victims of human trafficking. A limited edition coffee table book featuring 50 illustrations has also been printed.
Galea, who moved to Norwich 7 years ago to study graphic design and works as a brand and digital designer at SomeOne, said the idea for the project grew out of another he'd been working on. He said: “Last year I set-up a lo-fi design directory called DesignStudio.Directory. My aim was to make all my bookmarks available to students and recent design grads. I began listing studios in the UK offering placements and job opportunities, but quickly added links to studios around the world. I still add studios almost every day. Later on I added a list of type-foundries, copywriters, designers, stock libraries etc. It then only felt natural to incorporate a visual illustration directory too. So the idea of Wall of Wally came to life; an illustration directory that is visually simple to navigate. There’s so much talent out there; it can often become overwhelming whilst searching for the right illustrator.” He added that he chosen Wally as his subject, because of how important his work was in his university dissertation, and how incredibly influential and beloved he is in the design industry.
The project was dreamt up by Maltese graphic designer Jamin Galea
Of his ambitious project's design choices, meanwhile, he added: “I knew I wanted to call the project Wall of Wally, but I didn’t really plan to use a bow tie in the mark. I assumed that everyone would do that if given the opportunity. I liked the idea of using the two ‘w’s and that’s how the process started, but as you can see, the symmetry of the ‘w’s and the ‘o’ naturally lead me to a bow tie shape, and I gave in. My final tricky design decision was about the thickness of the ‘o’. Should it match the width of the lines in the ‘w’ or not? When it matched, the ‘o’ looked too thick, so I had to visually adjust the thickness of the ‘o’ until it looked right.”
