Dre Sanchez - Inspiration: Cereal Design

I plan to do my spoof on cereal ads, and so I did some visual research I'd like to share.

Personally, I prefer the old school cereal box art as the designs were based on clarity and confidence. The graphics were crisp, the food photography was tasteful, the layouts were simple, headings were bold, the hierarchy of visual elements was strong and functional, and so on. More than anything the designs were pleasing to look at and had a cartoony-ness that would appeal to kids. Today, these 50-something year old execs would never okay these so-called "generic" boxes to the masses - they'd rather assault you with designs so busy that they could be endorsing heroin in a box and a mother wouldn't know. She'd just see General Mills or Kellog's logo in the corner of the box, and throw it in the cart without thinking twice.

Even the printed comic and television ads for these products were fun to read and watch. I didn't post screen shots but the kids in theses ads behaved believably - unlike the cereal ads today. The ads were coherent and sold the product, unlike modern cereal television ads that bombard the screen with all this bullshit that you don't know what you're watching. Go on Youtube and check out them out for a comparison.

Animation guru John Kricfalusi (a.k.a. John K. of "Ren & Stimpy" fame; check out his amazing blog "John K. Stuff" for a treasure trove of cartoon paraphernalia ) humorously states that modern cereal design hinges on something he calls the "chaos theory layout." He claims that cereal designs today lack tasteful layout sensibilities altogether. A box should be able to read from across the store - similar to a good storyboard - but I'd be damned if anyone could tell what brands these monstrosities below are from more than a distance of 5 feet. The designs are cluttered and as John K. points out, tells the customer that this "food will taste like landfill." He also does not like the airbrushed art on the cartoon characters that are featured on these boxes because it takes away from the attractive character design (see the Rice Krispies and Flintstone boxes in particular). And I agree with him 100%.