Delray Beach artist Meghan Corrigan’s career is on the right track — literally.
Corrigan, a fine artist and graphic designer who once served as assistant art director for American Express’s Departures magazine and as art director of The Knot magazine, has created a summer-themed train wrap for Brightline, the passenger rail service traveling between Miami and Orlando, through August.
The wrap is part of a marketing initiative called “Love the Palm Beaches,” a collaboration between the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County and Discover The Palm Beaches, and is aimed at boosting tourism.
“The Palm Beaches is known as Florida’s cultural capital,” says Dave Lawrence, CEO of the Cultural Council. “We have an incredible lineup of arts experiences and are home to many talented professional artists like Meghan. We’re thrilled to feature her work, which reflects our destination so beautifully.”
Corrigan, a New Jersey native who relocated from New York City in 2020, says she was thrilled by the opportunity to see her work rolling up and down the Florida coast.
“I’m so honored and excited to be chosen for this project,” she says.
Her design features iconic images from Palm Beach County, including ballet dancers at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, the Worth Avenue clock tower, Jupiter Lighthouse, sea turtles and palm trees.
“This year’s arts-inspired Brightline train wrap offers travelers a colorful preview of what awaits in The Palm Beaches, transforming the journey itself into the first step of their destination experience,” says Milton Segarra, president and CEO of Discover The Palm Beaches.
A married mother of two school-aged children, Corrigan says creativity has always been a driving force in her life — dating back to childhood when she drew on her parents’ couch and walls.
After earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in 2003 from The College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., Corrigan spent years as an art director in magazine publishing. While she enjoyed art direction, she says she’s grateful to return to making original art full-time.
“Being the maker of the art is something I enjoy,” she says.
Influenced by artists including conceptual artist Rachel Lee Hovnanian, illustrator and graphic designer Cristoph Niemann, and painter Alex Katz, Corrigan says her style is fluid and unconstrained by any single medium or genre. Motivated by the desire to share beauty and bring her ideas to life, she’s rarely at a loss for inspiration.
On her days off, she enjoys the Florida lifestyle (“except for July and August”) spending time outdoors with family and visiting many of the cultural institutions she features in her design.
Her goal for the Brightline wrap was to create a simple visual solution using flat shapes and bright colors, reminiscent of Henri Matisse, that would be readable even at high speed.
To conceptualize the six-car design, Corrigan began by sketching preliminary ideas. Translating multiple vignettes into a seamless visual narrative was her biggest challenge.
“Because the train is so long, the challenge was how to create each vignette to flow into the next story and how that story would translate across six cars of the train,” she says.
She worked intensively on the project for about six weeks and rode the train from Boca Raton to Miami for a photo shoot, which she described as “a great ride.”
Although the project took considerable effort, Corrigan says it was a “fun challenge.”
Looking ahead, she hopes to focus more on fine art and expand into designing artwork and wall murals for residential homes through her company, Meghan Corrigan Design. Her primary goal?
“To be creative,” she says.
For Corrigan, the definition of success has more to do with personal satisfaction, contentment and feeling joy in the creation, something this project did for her “in good measure.”
That success has reinforced Corrigan’s desire to keep creating meaningful and personal work—projects that reflect her artistic voice while engaging viewers in fresh and unexpected ways.
And while Corrigan knows the train wrap will be retired at summer’s end, she embraces its ephemeral nature.
“It is a dream assignment — unique and unexpected,” she said. “The fact that it’s fleeting makes it even more special. I hope everyone enjoys it while they can.”
For more cultural experiences and travel ideas in The Palm Beaches, visit palmbeachculture.com. For more information about booking a Brightline ticket, visit www.gobrightline.com. For more information on Meghan Corrigan, visit meghancorrigan.com.