CALL OF THE WILD | 20th CENTURY FOX
SANTA CLARA & SKAGUAY EXTERIOR SETS

CALL OF THE WILD took place on entirely practical sets—physical spaces built to capture the textures and materials of the early 1900s. I designed the environmental identity for two distinct locations: turn-of-the-century Santa Clara, California, and a rough Yukon Gold Rush town. The work ranged from hand-painted storefront signage to vintage newspapers and packaging—all grounded in research and designed to feel real. The film opens on a period newspaper I designed using turn-of-the-century sources, pairing bold display type with uneven column structure to feel printed on a hand-fed press. The sled-dog illustration came from production designer Stefan Dechant and was integrated into the layout.

TURN OF THE CENTURY SANTA CLARA: The western town sequence was built on the Universal backlot — one of the few environments created entirely in-camera. I produced the on-set graphics for the storefronts and signage, working with the art director and scenic department to place each element within the existing architecture. Everything was scaled, printed, or painted specifically for how it would read through the lens, giving the town its texture and sense of history.

HAND-PAINTED SIGNAGE | FABRICATION PROCESS: The hand-painted signs were first designed digitally, then translated to physical paint through traditional sign-painting methods. Working with the scenic team, I created pounces from the approved designs and selected paint colors that matched period formulations. The result was signage that captured the hand-crafted quality of early 1900s work—brushstrokes, subtle irregularities, and all.

SKAGWAY | YUKON GOLD RUSH TOWN: Skagway was built as a frontier boomtown—rough, improvised, and raw. The signage and storefronts reflected that character: hand-painted signs for saloons, supply stores, and merchants that felt hastily made but purposeful, capturing the survival-driven energy of the Gold Rush.

PERIOD DOCUMENTS: The work ranged from building-scale signage to intimate paper artifacts. This land deed was designed with period legal formatting and typography, then hand-inscribed to feel like an authentic document from the era.