This is a postcard I created for the teen program, “Monsters, Munchies, and a Movie” at the CJM. We don’t really have a teen aesthetic, so I had to dip into the adolescence I remember all too often, and try to create something that would appeal to teenagers in a non-pandering way. Being as juvenile as I am, I figured I would amuse myself and see what happened.

Teens think a lot about themselves (as if we all don’t) but they have the excuse of their developing identities. I proposed a photoshoot with as many teens as could be rounded up. Three of them showed, which is when I shifted mindsets from “teens always want to be with the biggest group” to “exclusivity is the real currency of teenager-dom. They want a place for them to be alone with their closest friends.”

I tried to play with scale by hand-crafting the popcorn and slushie props with paint buckets and oversized styrofoam cups. Regular straws didn’t read on camera, so we rolled up some posters for that effect. It was a charge to have to create props on the fly, improv style. Reminded me that planning isn’t always a blessing to an active creative mind, whose strength is to make the absolute best out of a given situation. A strong shop light provided the movie-like lighting, and we used the lame-o camera that belongs to the office.

After the photoshoot, the photoshop fun began. I was determined to work an angry looking pug in there, the most monstrous of domestic beasts, but it got the ax for being too child-like.  I settled for Maurice Sendak monsters (from an exhibition on view) and public domain illustrations.

For colors, a Shrek green was dominant and correlating bring colors chosen from there. The beanbags also provided color inspiration.

The teens really seemed to like the postcard, and the process of seeing their goofing off in bean bag chairs transformed into a useful piece of marketing–their fun captured and spread. I want to make sure that for all future pieces, the teens are involved, and are encouraged to act as hard-line art directors as their sensibility for what works with their peer group develops.