Kids Menu Illustrations

QuietYell

I am excited to finally be able to share!!! : I got the pleasure to work with Mimi's Cafe to do the illustration work for their new kids menu and activity sheets to be used across their 84 restaurant locations.

It isn't quite a children's book, but the character & limited "adventure story/scenes" concept I presented was chosen, so it's headed that way!

Below is a link to read their press release with the PR image followed by a thumbnail grouping of the images I did for the menu and activity sheet that has been made public thus far.

http://quietyell.com/2018/03/02/mimis-cafe-kids-menu/

They have some on their kid's section of their site:
http://www.mimiscafe.com/kids

You can see larger images in my painted illustration portfolio:
http://quietyell.com/portfolio/

bnewman

Awesome work! Can you share any details of the job such as tools used, hours spent, challenges etc?

QuietYell

@bnewman Thank you!

Yes sure:

Tools:
Photoshop & Illustrator. Mostly Photoshop, but some elements were done in Illustrator for precision & it being easier to create it there.

Hours:
Well, there is other work that I'm not allowed to show yet, but most of the work was compressed into about 3 or so weeks (...of very, very long days!)

Challenges:
The biggest challenge was the compressed time. This was just a hard deadline that could not be moved, and this was being done from Thanksgiving week up to Christmas, which also, was the last month of my wife's pregnancy with our first child (born 12/28/17) and the weekly double doctor appointments due to pregnancy issues.

I do wish there would have been more time to breathe and do it since it was go-go-go from the start as well as be able to spend time massaging elements (drawing & painting) as I think I could do better, but I had to operate under @Jake-Parker "Finished Not Perfect" approach — That is a hard lesson for me... Regardless, though, the client is happy and apparently all of the restaurant operators love it, so that's huge for me as I want to make sure my clients enjoy working with me, find me thoughtful, thorough, & with good communication, and are happy with the end results.

Another challenge was making sure that the images would align when the child flips different combinations. I solved that by making the seams the same (with a safety zone to accommodate any printer cutting that may be off). Basically, I created a base ground & sky, and while I painted over them in each of the panels, I made sure to not paint within the 1/4" area at the seam.

Thanks for asking me about this. I need to do more reflection and case study writing!

Gary Wilkinson

Thank you for sharing about your project! It looks great and with only 3 weeks to work on it you must have worked really hard to get it all done.

Can I ask how the commission came about? Did you approach them or vice versa?

QuietYell

@gary-wilkinson Thanks! Yes, it was a lot of pushing to get it done. I had to find ways in my illustration process to reduce the workload to "buy me more time" (like reusing textures & elements to serve as foundation that I painted over as necessary). So it was a pretty good learning process too.

The project came about through a 3rd party that I have a relationship with.

djlambson

It looks amazing..I can't imagine trying to complete this in 3 weeks and having it look like that..well done and kudos to your wife!

QuietYell

@djlambson Awwww! Thank you!!!! I will tell her! Thanks!

Eli

WOW! That looks amazing! Well done. (especially with all that you had going on!)

QuietYell

@eli Thank you so much!!! (yes, that was such an intense time!)

Chip Valecek

@quietyell fantastic work! Did you also do the layouts/graphic design or just the illustrations?

QuietYell

@chip-valecek Thanks!!! I did everything that is shown in the thumbnails. So basically: I did all of the illustration work, then the illustration/text/design on the full cover and entry page (the page with the 2 characters and chalkboard), which set the font tone, and I did the entire activity sheet shown. I did not do the food photography, nor the pages that the food is on. I was asked to, but I turned it down because I really didn't have much time and needed to focus on the illustration work.

Will Terry

@quietyell Very fun project! Well done!

QuietYell

@will-terry That means so much to me to hear, Will. Thank you!!!

smceccarelli

So cool! Such a great project and wonderfully executed! Looks great!

@quietyell Super cool! Fun project done right!

QuietYell

@smceccarelli @Tom-Shannon Thank you both so much!!! Your words are incredibly encouraging!!! It has been super fun to do and the expansion interests are even more fun!

Kevin Longueil

@quietyell Wow! Super nice and done in 3 weeks - Very impressive! (I wish we had one nearby so i could see it in person

QuietYell

@kevin-longueil Thanks!!!!!! A little over 3 weeks but not by a lot since there simply wasn't more time to do the work due to the deadline. I wish we had one closer too! It is probably a 60+min drive for me... but the corporate office is about 30min down the road

Charlie Eve Ryan

@quietyell Awesome! Congrats

QuietYell

@charlie-eve-ryan Super Thank You!!!!!