Creative Strategy: Mark Riedy + Time Magazine collaborate for the kids
An artist interview
Client: TIME for Kids
Art director: Drew Willis
Title of Project: Earth Day Cover
Target audience: Elementary School kids
What was the creative challenge? To create a composition that depicted believable characters and make-believe environmental super-heroes, all in a very short time frame.
How did you resolve the challenge? I owe a lot of my creative ease to the unseasonably warm weather. ☺ And the neighborhood kids that were out taking advantage of a beautiful day in which to play. As I was out walking, contemplating how I was going to approach the subject for this cover, I stumbled on a group of kids playing in their front yard. After explaining to them and their moms what I was up to, they were more than happy to pretend to be super-heroes as I shot some reference photos. The photos were then used to create with Vector, emulating a vintage poster style.
I approached this cover aspiring to capture a Rockwell-like, Americana moment – to convey clearly that we were seeing fantasy, but then add a touch of the heroic so we could also see how the kids must have viewed themselves.
Art director Drew Willis said, “We love it. Everyone here loves it. It’s exactly what we envisioned. Mark really did a great job and exceeded all of our expectations. Especially in getting it in early in the day. That really saves us a lot of stress in terms of getting it out the door on the same day.”
