A week or so ago I was messing around in InDesign and I drew this Martian. I thought he looked a little like a breakfast cereal mascot (for a store brand maybe).Then for some reason Funny Face drink mix popped into my head. I used to love Funny Face back when I was a kid. Not so much the actual drink mix, but the characters themselves. I don't know exactly what it was, but something about the designs spoke to my little mind and I used to spend hours drawing them. I don't think they make it anymore. Too bad. Kids today don't know what they're missing.
Anyway, I decided to repurpose my spaceman into a Funny Face type kid's drink mix character from the 1960s, and the "Moonman" line of drink mixes was born. I'll eventually add some more flavors and characters as they come to me.
For my money, package design for kids reached its pinnacle in the 1960s. It seems like that's when illustration and design combined, Voltron-like, into an unstoppable amalgam of packaging greatness. Mattel Toys in particular had some incredible package design. Most kids probably never even looked at the boxes their toys came in and saw them as a barrier between them and their toy. I used to stare at the graphics on the box and study and admire them. Yeah, I wasn't a normal kid.
I drew the space man and the Moonman logo with the pen tool in InDesign. The logo is hand-lettered, but based loosely on a real font. Then I imported those elements into Photoshop, where the rest of the text, the packet and shading were done. I also added some fake halftones to the colors to help it look like a real offset printed piece.
I think package design for kid products went south when licensing took over. they used to be able to make anything they wanted. now they have to find some already-popular person or item and incorporate that into the design.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff! Love the character design as well as the faux drink mix packaging. Well done.
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