Project

'PATRICK The Story' Concert Event
Original Music by Pierre O'Reilly

http://www.pierreoreilly.com
http://www.patrickthestory.com

My Role: Design of Visual identity,
print and display materials for the
project .

I have been lucky enough to have
worked with Pierre on many of his
musical projects & this years perf-
ormance in the CIT Cork School of
Music has to have been his most
ambitious.

Entitled 'PATRICK-The Story' it was
a retelling of the story and legend
that is Irelands patron saint. How-
ever, there are no snakes here but
the story of a man kidnapped as a
youth and driven throughout his life
by an unshakable religious faith in
a time of brutality and darkness.

Sitting down with Pierre on a warm
June evening over a bottle of wine,
great for after hours brain storming,
we both decided that creating a character who was brooding, hurt, & hardened by life was closer to the real man. In short it would be Christian Bales 'Batman' as opposed to Adam Wests version.

I started by looking into old latin
fonts used on early documents, hand
written calligraphic samples like
Patricks only known letters (2) available to us today, the Book of Kells and monastic manuscripts etc. I wanted to createan identity for the event andin the end designed the name PATRICK using hand drawn, scanned andaltered letters indicative of those I had found in my research, albeit more grittier than monastic.

I was very excited to hear that specially commissioned illustrations by AcademyAward Nominated animator Nicky Phelan were to be part of the event and really enjoyed working with him throughout the project. Once we had finalised the Patrickcharacter I designed the posters and a 9m x 17m display banner which was to hangfrom a building in the middle of the city promoting the event.

When designing the programs my idea was based on a small leather journal / book with matching parchment/vellum style pages and 'uncial' style type giving a monastic air to the print piece and insuring a sense of continuity with the feel of the performance on the night.

The resulting concert held on March 18th & 19th this year included a 30 piece choir, 56 piece orchestra playing 14 movements, between each of which a narrator told the true story of PATRICK. Nicky's illustrations were projected through out performance and the auditorium included four 3m high sculpted statues of the PATRICK character created by 3 very talented students of the CIT Crawford School of Art & Design. The last movement culminated in a stunning performance by Internationally renouned Soprano Cara O'Sullivan and for me ended a very special project.