San Miguel Pale Pilsen’s Wanderland Features Beer Mats by Artist Rob Cham
MANILA – The annual Wanderland Festival prides itself as a diaspora where music and arts converge. For 2019, San Miguel Brewery Inc. collaborates with comic artist Rob Cham to design their beermats. adobo magazine interviews Cham about his process of re-imagining the Wanderland community with wizards, rabbits in hats and musical instruments and translate them into the festival’s memorabilia.
What was the project brief from San Miguel Beer Pale Pilsen?
They asked if I could do an illustration for their merch for Wanderland. That it would have been for a mat they were going to give out. They liked my art style and let me have the freedom to bounce off ideas with how we could make this work. The only other guideline they gave me was that it stay in line with Wanderland’s theme this year of magic.
How did you approach the brief and the design direction for the project?
I pitched to em that it’d be a mix of how it is a music event and magic elements like wizards, rabbits in hats, instruments, all while concert goers and musicians were floating about caught up in the moment. I suggested it be a pattern since I figured the mats would be huge, and thought it would be interesting for me to apply what I have been exploring with my art onto a recurring pattern of people floating around.
They asked that I include different bottles to help promote the brand, but I would have wanted to include that anyway since people do drink at these events and floating bottles make an interesting visual. I asked if it was alright to have it be limited colors (four at most) so that it would be more striking and I’d use a lot of the orange and blue motif Wanderland had going on.
Where will the design be implemented?
So far they used it for the mats they gave out and I asked that it be Wanderland exclusive. They also used it for their booth backdrop I believe.
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About the artist:
Rob Cham is an illustrator, comic book creator, writer, artist, and friend. He received the National Book Award for his first graphic novel Light and the National Children’s Book Award for the follow-up, Lost. He is part of the core team of Unnamed, a South East Asian Comics Collective, Former web designer, teacher, art director, and editor
