50′s Style Illustrator Family
Ahh, the 50′s. A time of pure bliss. A post-war period of surplus and prosperity. A time where Eddie Haskel and the Beav’ symbolized an entire generation. A time where denial quite possible was king and you just shoved everything under the carpet. Save Face was the triumphant goal.
You can tell a lot about a period and their ethics by taking a peek at their illustrations. Children’s books, in particular, shed light onto this ethic of happiness and denial. Books were filled with calm, peaceful drawings of kids and their parents, their pets, going to school, in their bedrooms gazing longingly out their windows, and every other combination possible. Soft teddy bears dangling by one arm from the grasp of a 3-year-old were everyday.
So when commissioned to create some artwork for a group outside of DC where the primary audience was born in the 40′s, I hearkened back to this by-gone era of bliss. Their goal was to raise awareness (during a year-long campaign) that an entire age group of young adults (18-35) are MIA from their churches. For the primary audience, these are their kids and grand-kids who do not connect with the traditional church.
The tag line is: It’s Sunday Morning, Do You Know Where Your Young-Adult Children Are? The overall tone/feeling was to be upbeat inspiring, reminiscent of the “good ‘ole days” in the Church when the pews were full and the people were (supposedly) pious.
Here was my design reasoning/explanation:
- The inspiration for the design was the 50s-60s hand-drawn children’s books. Hope is this helps the target audience (TA) emotionally recall either reading those books to their children or having those books read to them when they were children.
- The 50s-60s style will help paint the contrast between those good ol’ days and today. The times have changed and we are no longer in that era. Hope is that seeing a retro design style will create both cultural tension and nostalgia in TA.
- The 50s-60s style also points out the reality that some churches find themselves in. In as much as this design style is outdated, so are their church methods for their young-adult children.
- The colors are soft pastels, which both hearken to that era and help create an upbeat, non-threatening design.
- The man is a joyful fatherly figure completely satisfied with his church and what it does for him. He is genuine and has a spring in his step. He is dressed in his “Sunday Best”.
- The children were chosen to be young to remind TA that these are indeed their children, just grown up. Hope is this will recall those emotional ties of their children when they were young.
- The children are set in silhouettes to create featureless people. People we really don’t see or understand. They are just a “shape”, an age group, to us. If we don’t know them then it is easier for us to leave them on the “outside”.
- The question marks on their chests create that symbol of being unknown: Both who they are as people and where they are at on Sundays.
- All characters are upbeat to help convey that nobody is being cruel or are mad at each other. We believe there is a genuine desire for the two to come together — hand in hand — in faith.
- Misunderstanding, fear, and not knowing what to do play a big part in the separation. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
- All three are walking together, hand-in-hand, which is ultimately the goal of the year focus.
Ultimately, this was not the final design chosen, but it was a fun design to create. The final chosen design will be posted soon.
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[...] few weeks back I showed you a design of a 50’s “family” and mentioned that it was not the final design choice. After conversation and looking at a few more [...]