FROM THE ARCHIVE: My SESAME STREET Storybook Audition

Here are some samples from my archive that I originally did for Sesame Workshop featuring some of the characters from Sesame Street! Done back in or around 2014. 

I did other samples for them, but these were unique in that they were done to show them I could do storybook art as well. I had already done many storybooks by this time but they wanted to see how well I would interpret the art direction they gave me with their characters and not someone else's characters. I agreed with this and it was not an issue. It was also not a paid audition test, but the upside had way more positives than negatives. 

Two reasons why they wanted me to do this: 

1) To reassure them I knew how to draw and layout art for a storybook while working within the given size specs and be able to leave enough room for the manuscript text (very important!).

2) To draw the characters in original poses without relying on style guide art as a crutch. 

There is a different skill and language to doing storybooks and it depends on what age demo they are being produced for as well.

They wanted three samples total, and they just wanted to see rough versions for them. They gave me art direction for two of them and the third I could do whatever I wanted for fun. When I submitted them back to them I put the art direction on the sample as well. That way as my samples made the rounds internally it was all there and self-contained on the main two. I marked the areas for where the manuscript text would go, but it's fairly easy to see without it. It's an art to build and frame areas where the story text will go on any given page and that's part of the fun of designing a storybook. There's so many ways to do it! 

On my samples, I added some gray tone to make them pop a bit more off the page and give some separation. Normally, if you were doing an actual book, you wouldn't have time for it, but you always have to go a bit further on the audition pieces to impress the powers that be. 

My third piece was done for fun and it featured the Twiddlebugs that lived in the windowsill garden outside Ernie's window. I used to love when they would appear on the show when I was a kid as they collected odds and ends to make their home and car. I also thought they were unique, and they weren't in the original reference they gave me, so I thought it would show some extra effort on my part. 

In the end, I was approved and added to the list of artists that were available to work on Sesame Street material. I never did get any actual work though as they had two other artists who had been doing the work for quite some time and they always got first dibs on any new projects. If they turned something down or couldn't fit it in, I would then possibly get it. That was fine as you never know when the call or email will come.

I inquired again a couple years ago to see if the people I knew were still there and if there was anything new going on. They were still there and I was told I was still on the list but that they weren't producing much (if any) new art due to budget cuts (among other funding issues). Turns out they were mostly repurposing the vast archive of style guides and older work for any new projects they did. They were also reprinting older classic material for a new audience. One that has never been out of print since 1971 is the classic Little Golden Book The Monster at the End of This Book starring Grover!

Hope you enjoyed this fun post as I find some more from my vast archives!