ITV indent heralds flower power
If, like me, you are feeling like a bit of a ‘lift’ just now, it can’t have escaped your notice that ITV viewers are getting a flower-powered telly treat during January 2021 and one that is certain to lift the spirits.
Thanks to a unique collaboration between broadcaster and garden/landscape designer Mark Lane and collage artist Sharon Walters, viewers to ITV are able to see the new logo ident throughout the month. In an ITV first, two creatives from different industries have come together to craft the logo indent which also has an important underlying message.
Mark and Sharon teamed up late last year to create the collaborative biophilia-based indent which combines hand-crafted paper cut collage and landscape design. It has been inspired by the beneficial power of nature in Mark’s Kent garden and Sharon’s love of plants and flowers. The pair reinvented the ITV logo using an intricate layered collage which was then enlarged and temporarily installed for filming in a silver birch woodland at Fullers Mill garden near Bury St Edmonds in Suffolk, owned by horticulture charity Perennial.
The indent aims to encourage viewers to pause, reflect and exhale while enjoying the simplistic, natural beauty of the work. Entitled ‘Layered Exhaled Expressions’, the project also raises the issues of accessibility, identify and ethnic diversity and the effects of climate change.
Mark, (pictured above with Sharon) who is the UK’s first garden designer to be in a wheelchair, said: “Sharon and I are from communities often described as marginalised and through this collaboration we highlight ability in disability and the identity and power in blackness, and the diversity in both.
“Last year was awful for so many, and with our already complex modern lives submerged into unimaginable challenges, we wanted to create a collaborative work that would encourage people to slow down, relax and breathe.”
The concept of the indent is that paper would return to the woodland, illustrating renewal, sustainability and biodiversity and display the journey from root, to tree, to final use. Mark points out that he knew of the perfect spot for the indent installation – the stunning woodland at Fullers Mill: “The natural world, flora and fauna, have an incredible ability to improve our mental and physical well-being and we hope our collaborative creation brings just a little of this biophilic power into people’s living rooms,” he said.
Sharon points out that by creating a hand-cut ITV logo stencil, she initially used a layering of images approach by cutting and gluing new sections until the design felt complete. However, it proved difficult to transfer to the scale that they had both envisaged, so she returned to the ITV template, this time creating a collage using real flowers and foliage: “I had used this creative process previously in pieces for my ‘Seeing Ourselves’ series and it worked perfectly for the new ITV project.
“To recreate the design to a larger scale I photographed the work so it was ready for Mark to transfer to his landscape design CAD programme where large-scale pieces were planned and designed. This was a truly collaborative approach at every stage, and Mark and I have become great friends throughout this process.”
The new indent is certainly eye-catching and very effective, bringing that pause for breath Mark talks about in the simplicity of its colour and setting.
Mark is a regular presenter on BBC Morning Live and BBC TV Gardeners’ World and also fronts BBC TV coverage of the RHS Shows. He is an Ambassador for four charities and a Patron and Trustee for two other charities, with a strong emphasis on social and therapeutic horticulture, gardening and health and wellbeing. He is also a prolific writer and his new book ‘Royal Gardens of the World‘ has just been published by Hachette (UK).
Visit: https://www.marklanedesigns.com or www.marklane.tv or follow Mark on Twitter: @MarkLaneTV
Sharon is an artist, freelance educator and museum professional who has been working on a mixed media collage series entitled “Seeing Ourselves”, now with over 250 pieces in the collection. She has exhibited in a number of public spaces including the Mall Galleries, NOW gallery in Greenwich and the New Ashgate Gallery in Surrey. In December 2019 Sharon won the Reach Art prize for excellence in the arts, diversity and social inclusion. Sharon has had several collaborations with artists, organisations and groups which have developed both her art practice and community outreach work.
Just at this moment in time we all need a dose of flower-power and congratulations need to go to Mark and Sharon for their creativity and to ITV for facilitating this unique collaboration.Love it!
