Modelo Dia De Los Muertos
In 2019 I was commissioned to create images for Modelo's Dia De Los Muertos campaign for 2020. A rollercoaster ride of a project that turned out great but got limited exposure given that no one could really gather to enjoy the holiday because of COVID. Amazing client and a cool process to share.
The project started as a phone call in August of 2019 with the crew from Upshot in Chicago to hear the project outline. They were honest with me that I was one of a few illustrators they were talking with and they commissioned sketches so the client could decide on a direction/illustrator.
I had immediately had the thought of turning the Modelo lions into skeletons with Calavera skulls, so that was my starting point. I then got really carried away with Dia De Los Muertos symbology and went to town on sketches - I ended up narrowing to two directions I liked and I went way tighter than I normally would, but the visuals were screaming to be drawn just a bit better than a pencil, so I went with it.
The pitch sketches I submitted
I ended up winning the job, but my directions were seen as being too far off brand so I went back to the drawing board, armed with feedback and additional direction from the client and did looser compositional sketches. The first set were for a poster that didn't feature Modelo product but were simply a celebration of Dia De Los Muertos.
The "celebratory" poster sketches
A second poster was to feature Modelo bottles and surrounding elements that would be indicative of the holiday.
The product poster sketches
From those sketches, we narrowed the direction to 3 final sketches. The two on the left were the final selects - although, me, being the idiot I am, illustrated the one on the right first because I misinterpreted the feedback (it was cool too, but the final one is the one the client asked for!)
The final round of sketches
The final posters were used as point of purchase in stores, as promotional posters in bars, and repurposed for out of home and a cool VR experience. All of the elements were illustrated to be able to be pulled apart and recomposed for different mediums. Made for some big photoshop files as I was working, but made conversion to vectors and delivery as Adobe Illustrator files much more manageable.
The "celebratory" poster (was accepted into the Society of Illustrators LA juried competition in 2020)
The product poster
Additionally, I was commissioned to create a Calavera Skull for the campaign. I ended up doing a couple variations with different sized mustaches (small homage to the great Frida Kahlo!). Modelo decided to make these into some limited edition dimensional skulls, so I got to dive into some 3D thinking and visualize how these could look (sketches below)
The Calavera skull variants
The dimensional Calavera skull visualization
In any project of this scope/scale there are a lot of people involved. Always thankful for these opportunities and want to give credit to the agency and client that trusted me with their brand. And especially to Kimber Nussbaum who made the process run so smoothly.
Constellation Brands Inc. - Modelo
Greg Gallagher, Brand VP
Ryan Anderson, Brand Director
Nisa Agrawal Johnson, Brand Manager
Kevin Enos, Trade Director
Celia McCormack, Trade Manger
Estefania Alamo, Trade Associate Manager
Kailey Kubacki, Trade Sr. Manager
Jordan Fischbach, Trade Manager
Taylor Hunt, Trade Associate Manager
Upshot Agency
Racheal Schneider, Account Director
Alexa Berg, Account Supervisor
Shelby Komar, Account Manager
Laurent Varlet, Associate Creative Director
Kimber Leigh Nussbaum, Senior Art Producer
