Act II Popcorn Header

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A few months ago I was hired by the terrific team at Minneapolis agency RPM Connect to illustrate an in-store display for Act II Popcorn, a brand owned by ConAgra Foods. RPM came to me with a fun concept (two kids bouncing around on a sea of popcorn) and a rough layout for the signage, then asked me to work up a sketch:

ConAgra gave us a thumbs-up to move forward. Due to printing limitations it was decided that we could only use five colors: Black, Red, Blue, Gold, and White. I could use any percentage of the colors I needed but we decided not to risk mixing the colors. In other words, I could use 30% red to get pink but I couldn’t add black to the red to get maroon. It was a bit of a challenge but in the end I think it worked out well.

I created the artwork in Illustrator. I made sure to place the kids and the floating popcorn bits on different layers so that the designer could have a little flexibility when fitting them into the different layouts. I didn’t bother illustrating all of the popcorn on the right-hand side of the artwork since I knew it would be covered up by the blue-and-gold “swoop” shape.

Here’s the final artwork I submitted:

And here’s the final header RPM designed for use in stores:

Look for this display in your local grocery store, and then grab yourself some yummy popcorn!

Poppycock Packaging Art for Orville Redenbacher

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Earlier this year I was hired my the good folks at RPM Connect in Minneapolis to illustrate some Christmas canisters for Orville Reddenbacher’s “Poppycock” brand. The snacks are now available in stores. I picked up my first few canisters in Target but I’m sure other stores will be carrying them as well.

The folks at RPM Connect were great to work with. By the time I was brought onto the project the general concept had already been decided on but the exact style of illustration was still under discussion. They wanted a series of vignettes around the bottom of the can. Something flat, graphic, not very cartoony, and probably monochromatic.  Also, the client had incorporated some snowflakes-and-trees clip art into the mockup and I was asked to try to incorporate those elements into my final illustration. Whatever I did couldn’t deviate too far from that “look”.

Given those parameters, I worked up a few samples to try and nail down a possible style for the illustration:

Normally my work is very cartoony so it was a lot of fun to push myself in another direction and play around with styles and colors I wouldn’t normally use. Ultimately the client chose Option #2 (the one in the upper right) and that’s the style I went with. Here’s the final illustration:

From there the agency added in the logo and other graphic elements. The final result is now available in stores: