NYC-based incandescent reached out to me to help create a holiday mailer. With their mindset always on the unconventional, They sought an approach that wasn't your typical Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Santa Claus for their friends and clients. Instead, they enlist the help of designers to help craft original stories that exemplify the human spirit. This year, it was my turn.
For the 2021 holiday season, they wanted to tell a story about an Ohio-based teacher who embarked on a journey to build a Montessori school out of a refurbished storefront in the city of Cleveland. Montessori schools are holistic, self-paced, experiential alternatives to public schools, and can have a real impact on a child's early development. She then encountered hardships as COVID-19 became our reality. After being jilted by a business partner, and adapting as an educator to no in-person contact, she pushed through to persevere and be a pillar in her community.
To not be so on the nose with the visual, I came up with the idea of utilizing pollinators as representatives for people. They are a part of a limited few in the animal kingdom that improves the areas they take from (refurbished storefront) while enriching the community they serve (teaching children). For the sake of simplicity and minimalism, we narrowed down the broad term of 'pollinators' to bees. In doing so, I had to research how to depict bees to go alongside the corresponding outline text. Some takeaways of the things I learned: 1) pollinators make up one-third of every bite of food on the planet. 2) Bees do not hibernate in the winter. They cluster together and vibrate to generate heat in the hive, digging inward from the surface while keeping the queen warm in the center. And 3) Honey bees pollinate approximately 80% of all vegetables, fruit, and seed crops in the US.
Even though this project was difficult from a creative standpoint, I enjoyed the collaborative nature of it. Also, finding alternative ways to solve creative problems is always my preferred method. incandescent offered that to me, and then some. I couldn't turn this opportunity down.