Proximity London and Grand Visual get set to deliver a memorable Oxfam Mother’s Day

Proximity London have brought together talented artist Lizzie Mary Cullen and cutting edge technology by Grand Visual to create a real time giant Mother’s Day card for Oxfam – a celebration of mums around the world as part of the charity’s Mother Appeal.

The Happiest Mother’s Day Card is a giant canvas divided up into lots of little squares. When a member of the public goes online and dedicates a square to their mum via the website, the artist will paint within that square and bring it to life. This means the more people that take part and celebrate their mum, the more the design of the card will grow and blossom.

Launching on Wednesday 19 March at Westfield London, the art event will run for five days until Sunday 23 March. During this time, the public will be invited to dedicate their square online at happiestmothersdaycard.org (live from 19 March) – where they can also watch a live video stream of the artist working on the card and also make a small optional donation. At the end of the event, the artwork will be turned into a giant Mother’s Day card, hopefully breaking the world record for most contributions to a greetings card.

The attempt has been officially approved by Guinness World Records with the current record standing at 5,339 contributions. Creative agency Proximity London devised the strategy, creative concept and execution (including web user experience and design) and overall management of the event. Oxfam’s brief to Proximity London was to generate buzz and publicity for Oxfam’s Mother Appeal (a mass audience fundraiser to raise over £10 million* to help mothers worldwide lift themselves and their families out of poverty for good); then translate this buzz into donations and data capture for future support.

John Treacy, executive creative director at Proximity London said, “The Happiest Mother’s Day card blends a live event with digital innovation to create a powerful idea that drives awareness, participation and ultimately donation. But more than that, it’s also a celebration of some of the most powerful and important people in the world, in the run up to the day we think of them the most.”

John Lucas, supporter development manager at Oxfam said, “The aim is to mobilise networks and communities of people to come together and share in a celebration of mums by creating something that is very social and sharable, while at the same time very personal.”

Grand Visual provided the creative technology solution, sourcing the hardware and integrating the set up with the website build. The main technical challenge was to ensure the squares dedicated online are perfectly synched with the live card. That way the artist will always know the physical area in which she can paint. Grand Visual was able to achieve this by using a robotic panhead camera to capture the artist’s physical canvas. This live card view was then overlaid with a digital grid system linked directly to the website and also projected back onto the artist’s canvas. As the online dedications grow, so too does the size and breadth of the artist’s grid projection – so the mural expands in real-time as the dedications happen!

Dan Dawson, creativetTechnology director, Grand Visual added; “This multichannel campaign required a sophisticated creative technology solution to bring together the digital and real world elements. The execution delivers the digital experiences that fit with our on-demand lifestyle, whilst providing a physical brand experience at Westfield London and a physical card for those desiring more tangible experiences.”

Phosphor Art, a leading illustration company in London are proud to represent artist Lizzie Mary Cullen for the Oxfam Live Motherhood event at Westfield shopping centre. Lizzie said “I’m so excited to be working with Oxfam to create this beautiful artwork for Mother’s day. The more people who get involved, the better. I’ll be telling all my friends and family to get involved and raise money for this wonderful cause.”