Millennials are overstimulated by images on their phones, including images of art. So instead of showing them any art, we described it in a few choice words. They had to imagine it. Not only did this treat all the diverse art and cultures equally, but it also piqued people’s curiosity and ignited the creative process in people’s brains. Instead of showing the result of the creative process, we invited Los Angeles to participate in it and come see it for themselves. At a time when Latin American and Latino culture is often oversimplified, the campaign’s descriptions of art treated all the cultures, countries, artists and mediums equally.

Each headline used color gradients pulled directly from each piece of art. And each describes a piece of art from one of over seventy unique exhibitions. That adds up to dozens of different lines for people to discover around the city—many different works to imagine. What someone saw at the bus stop in the neighborhood was different from the billboard near the office. Snapcodes allowed the public to see the art, not only to locate that specific piece in its museum, but also to compare what they imagined to the actual work of art.

Our goal was to reach people who were not seeking art, but we didn’t want to give them a chance to judge a key image. One image could never do justice to the scale of the art exhibition that was PST. And we knew art enthusiasts would come to art exhibitions no matter what. We wanted to draw in the people who didn’t know anything about Latin American art—the millennial Angeleno. Our campaign simultaneously piqued the interest of those casual observers while treating all the art equally and not creating a hero image or turning one piece of art into the star. All the art was equally interesting because we described it instead of showing it. The gradients on the art acted as a window to the art itself.

The goal of this campaign was to get millennials into museums to see PST’s enormous collection of Latin American and Latino art, while simultaneously treating all that art equally. No medium, country of origin, culture, religion or language was to be prioritized. By sidestepping imagery, our campaign turned the streets of LA into a giant art gallery, and it turned Angelenos into artists as they created art in their heads.

Our goal was to reach people who were not seeking art, but we didn’t want to give them a chance to judge a key image. One image could never do justice to the scale of the art exhibition that was PST. And we knew art enthusiasts would come to art exhibitions no matter what. We wanted to draw in the people who didn’t know anything about Latin American art—the millennial Angeleno. Our campaign simultaneously piqued the interest of those casual observers while treating all the art equally and not creating a hero image or turning one piece of art into the star. All the art was equally interesting because we described it instead of showing it. The gradients on the art acted as a window to the art itself.

For its five month run, Pacific Standard Time brought hundreds of exhibitions of Latin American and Latino art to dozens of art institutions across Los Angeles. But millennials don’t take chances on unfamiliar art. For them, art lives on Instagram. Our campaign needed to get them into the museum, not just entice them with pictures of art. At the same time, Latin America’s diverse cultures needed to be represented equally, and the variously themed exhibitions needed to be represented by a single campaign. The budget was not huge, but the campaign had to convey the scale of the collection, while not prioritizing any exhibition or culture.