Cereal Rant

I love the 'new' retro designs that some cereals are bringing back to stores. The Cap'n Crunch boxes are a real treat to see.


Honestly, which characters look more appealing and easily readable? Jay Ward beats muddied, complex, over-air-brushed-in-Photoshop characters any day. What's sad is that the Rice Krispies characters don't have to look that way. They can be just as appealing if given the chance.
And on another note, what kid would be intrigued by the huge "Vitamin D" sticker versus the one that says "Free Collector Cards on Back"?


Perhaps most pleasing is that the retro stuff is starting to influence the non-retro cereals. I'll tell you that this Kix box design is the most clearest and easily read one on the shelf.


While the Trix bunny still has some air-brush issues, the lack of a fancy background helps everything read well.


Plus I like the pose. Look at those greedy hands.


Compare the Trix box to this monstrosity.


If there was ever a cereal that needed a retro re-branding, it would be Frosted Flakes.


I also saw this on my way out the store.

Post Tens

So I was searching around this Adviews page on Itunes when I found the Post cereal commercials. A few of them had the same style of animation which were particularly appealing.


Simple setup. The background is non-existent and the floor and stairs are very simplistic. They only serve to emphasize the family which is the point. Sometimes (most times) modern cereal commercials get so worked up over the highly detailed backgrounds and environments that they take away the emphasis from the cereal, which is stupid.
This commercial design is straight to the point. Where do we eat cereal? In our homes of course!


I also love the newspaper cutout. It's clever and reads easily on TV. It looks like most of these old commercials were made for those small screen TVs everyone had back then. But just because we have more screen real estate today doesn't mean we have to fill it up with details that get in the way of the message. I would look at it more as an opportunity to make bigger, bolder, more easily read statements. Apple product commercials already know this.


Even though the style is very simple and geometric, the characters all look very organic and alive.


Look at their faces! It's so appealing! Look at the dad! This is the "Have a nice day" smiley face decades before it was invented.


The family is all at the table around Post Tens. No frills. This is pure advertising.




I like the cartoons better than some strange man telling me what to do.



View the commercial here.

Kyle Sketches

I kept trying to simplify my friend Kyle's face more and more until it was as simple as I could get it. Then I made him fat.

He was knitting during the first one.

Oceanside Museum of Art

I went to visit the Oceanside Museum of Art the other day to check out the Neville Page exhibit. I also checked out the WWII watercolor exhibit they had going on as well. Here are some photos I took:

I love the colors in this one. You can see the artist used a bluish purple for the shadows.



This one was pretty big.



Victory gardens.
And now here is the real reason I went to the museum:



I was presently surprised to see some more cartoony stuff amongst the realistic creature designs he had. He should do more of it!



Seeing anatomy stuff like this shows how pro Page is. He's not faking it.

Some more old photos

Sketchbook

Based on a true story (unfortunately):