Turning the bed sheets of Shanghai's longtangs into canvases for 16 artists in a CASETiFY brand campaign in China

Reimagine Everyday Through Creativity

[Campaign][Design][Experiential] [2023]

Our strategy had positioned CASETiFY as the curator of an art marketplace. From there, we wanted a strong point of view on creativity and art itself, one worth staking a claim on. We found it in CASETiFY's own words: "CASETiFY aren't just cases, they're canvases. Pocket-sized pieces of art made by creators big and small, unfamiliar and iconic."

Aerial view of Shanghai longtang rooftops with artwork sheets strung between buildings

If a phone case could be a canvas, we wanted to push that further and redefine what a canvas actually is, beyond a plain white piece of fabric. The answer was already hanging in front of us. Walk through Shanghai's old longtangs and you'll see bed sheets strung outside every building, an everyday splash of color most people walk past without a second look.

Artist-designed sheets hung across a longtang alley seen from above

Black and white artwork sheets strung between brick longtang houses

We took that as our unexpected canvas and invited 16 artists, domestic and international, to reinterpret it as art: paper-cutting artist Chen Fenwan, multimedia artists LOXEL and Joyce Wu, illustrators Joce Cova, Phannapast, Yeah Yeah Chloe, Bodil Jane, WHOSMiNG, Uncle Belly, and Humberto Cruz, graffiti artists Crosswave and Zibezi, and musicians Cacien and jfever.

Illustrated sheets reading You make my heart smile hanging over a longtang lane

Colourful artwork sheets strung on wires above a narrow Shanghai alley

Large patterned mural painted on a tall panel in the exhibition

Artists on ladders painting a patterned mural on a brick wall

The work went on display in Guanghua Li, a historic corner of the former French Concession once home to figures like 1930s film star Hu Die and diplomat Wang Zhengting.

Crowds outside the CASETiFY exhibition building in Guanghua Li with artwork on the balconies

Exhibition hall with blue display tables and large artworks under a timber roof

Exhibition hall with a blue inflatable sofa and a painted shelving sculpture

Shanghai wasn't the only canvas. We worked with digital artists Laurie Rowan and Eva Cremers to reimagine the cityscapes of Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Beijing, Guizhou, and Wuhan, carrying the idea into six more cities through digital art.

Eva Cremers digital artwork of playful characters climbing Beijing's CCTV building

Laurie Rowan digital artwork of a creature playing mahjong for Chengdu

Eva Cremers digital artwork of flowers and characters on Wuhan's bridge

Laurie Rowan digital artwork of sculptural characters in Guizhou's mountains

Alongside it, we made a social film to carry the idea further than any single city could, inspiring people to look at their own everyday lives differently and notice that they're already surrounded by canvases.

Tying it all together, we built a unifying visual system built around CASETiFY's distinct lowercase "i," a small mark standing in for a much bigger idea: individuality and self-expression.

Exhibition entrance with campaign signage and a pillar printed with CASETiFY letters

Campaign banners with the lowercase i logotype hung from a balcony

The campaign reached 235.3 million impressions overall and drove 2 million new visits to CASETiFY's website. It generated $1.8 million in revenue, and sales for the featured artists' work tripled.

235.3M impressions overall

2M new visits to CASETiFY's website

$1.8M in revenue

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