THE ORIGINAL BRUSHES OF EDVARD MUNCH

Innovation Trophy
TitleTHE ORIGINAL BRUSHES OF EDVARD MUNCH
BrandADOBE
Product/ServicePHOTOSHOP/CREATIVE CLOUD
Category A02. Applied Innovation
Entrant ABBY PRIEST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation ABBY PRIEST Stockholm, SWEDEN
PR ABBY PRIEST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production ABBY PRIEST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Pontus Widell Abby Priest Art Director
Anders Hellström Abby Priest Copywriter
Oskar Hellqvist Abby Priest Creative Director
Niklas Crona Abby Priest Project Manager
Andreas Morne Abby Priest Chief Executive Officer
Anna Rose Adobe Marketing Manager

The Campaign

Adobe Photoshop CC offers many technical features and possibilities. But to get our target group to paint digitally, we needed to create something with a soul, something unique beyond the technology and software. In collaboration with the Munch Museum in Oslo, we digitized the over 100-year-old original paintbrushes of Norwegian master painter Edvard Munch, creator of the world-famous painting ’The Scream’. The fragile originals were transformed into an exclusive set of Photoshop brushes using 360° scans inspire and engage a new generation of artists to paint like a master, using a piece of art history. The original brushes of Edvard Munch is a custom Photoshop-exclusive brush set that utilizes the already existing brush feature in Photoshop CC.

Creative Execution

The custom brushes allows users to paint digitally with a real oil brush feel in Adobe Photoshop CC. Working closely with the conservation experts at the Munch Museum, each original brush was photographed in 360 degrees using ultra-high-resolution cameras, documenting all angles and details to create an accurate three-dimensional representation. Further, Munch’s artistic style and brushwork were closely analyzed by experts from the Munch Museum, and combined with laboratory data about the brushes’ attributes, including physical properties such as flexibility and bristle type. The process of turning the data and scans into Photoshop brushes was performed by Kyle T. Webster, regarded by many as the world’s foremost authority on Photoshop brushes. In collaboration with the museum experts, Kyle transformed all the data into digital representations of Munch’s brushes, capturing the exact shape and performance attributes of each brush. The unique brush set for Photoshop are available for free download and distributed globally via Adobe’s own social media channels, blogs and websites.

The idea and concept of finding and sharing creative treasures with the world is designed to be scalable and applicable on future projects with other famous artists, phenomenas or creative movements. All with the aim to inspire a new generation of artists and digitally eternalizing forgotten parts of our creative heritage.

The core unit of the campaign is a unique creative asset that preserves and brings life to a forgotten part of art history by utilizing the progressive features within the product (Adobe Photoshop CC). The campaign is a first of its kind of project that preserves our creative heritage in a completely new way.