And Lo– A Miracle In The Desert

My assignment: an illustration for The Delicious Dozen: The 12 Best Coca-Colas I Ever Tasted.

Here’s the opening line:

The best one – ever – was handed ice cold and dripping through the window of a car so beaten-up by Texas that I couldn’t tell the make or model.

Here’s the final:

The assignment was for Coca-Cola Journey, the company’s online magazine and social media site. It’s a beautiful example of a brand using content marketing to win fans and engage followers.

Writer Charles McNair‘s essay had me laughing from start to finish. He started out as
a baby, and claimed he was actually weaned on Coke (“I followed her like a shark. After months of constant pursuit, Mama needed relief. Coke was it.”)

Childhood memories included his grandfather bringing him a little green snake in a Coke bottle (he didn’t drink that one), and surviving junior high football practice in August (“I drank two after each practice. I didn’t make the team, but I didn’t die.”

I made a few sketches as I read through his entertaining memoir.

Wait– what’s the Leaning Tower Of Pisa doing in there?? (“I played baseball in Italy. Third base. Verona Arsenal.”)

But it was that opening vignette that cried out for attention: marooned in the Texas desert, while hitchhiking to New Orleans…

After five hours, vultures circled… When a vehicle got close, I stepped to the asphalt, stuck out my thumb. I gave a cheerful I’m-not-an-escaped-convict grin… After eight hours, I finally thumbed a ride…

As the Samaritan pulled his anonymous make and model to a blessed stop, I hustled up to jump aboard. A hand with a cold bottle of Coca-Cola appeared out the window. He’d already popped the cap. That was the best one. Ever.

Here’s another take. The rescuer “sold Beltone hearing aids for a living, the inventory
piled around his ankles in the floorboard.” There were tell-tale signs of other stranded hitchhikers who’d used rocks to spell out their names. Maybe they thought the rocks “would help notify next of kin.”

Editor Jay Moye and I agreed the sketch was too busy. Here’s the revised sketch, which dramatically improved the focus.

The final had to fit into a 604 by 337 pixel space. That’s a long horizontal and a very tight vertical. I needed to make some adjustments.

I made the car longer and used two cacti instead of one. I also left myself generous margins so I could fine-tune the fit.

I used a thin black rectangle, set to the desired dimensions on a separate layer in Photoshop, to help me center the image before cropping it.

Here’s the final again. The cacti create the illusion of height, even though they’re quite short. The size of the Coke bottle is exaggerated, but in a pleasantly comic way.

Ice-cold Coke to the rescue– now that’s branding and social media at its best. Mmmwah!

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Ever tried to promote your brand by asking fans to share a story about it?

Do you have a vivid memory that involves a well-known product or service?

Ever looked up and seen vultures circling overhead– and you’re the only one around??

Hope you’ll leave a comment.

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