Holiday Books 

^{Illustrations and
Animation by
Andrew Bannecker}

Art Director/Assistant Visuals Editor:
Gil Fontimayor
Artist Representation: Bernstein & Andriulli

Every winter season, The WSJ Books section publishes the Holiday Books gift guide in the Weekend paper and online. A month prior to publication, the WSJ Books team and I huddled together to select a fun, modern and lively animator who could illustrate for WSJ Books’s digital products (website, newsletter and social feeds).

We liked Andrew Banneckers’s previous work in character figures and motion and asked him to use his trademark vector art style to create a winter wonderland full of reading scenes.

Working one-on-one with Andrew, I provided him art direction on color palette, typography usage, space and style. I handled the creative brief, negotiated budget and provided feedback on sketches leading up to Andrew’s final executions. After color processing and cropping the illustrations I placed his illustrations into print page layouts and within engaging online article templates our in-house developer team created.

Cross collaboration occurred with the WSJ audience development, social media and books editorial team and the color correction staff throughout the production timeline.

Desktop view of WSJ.com’s Holiday Book gift guide




A selection of Andrew’s sketchesFront page of WSJ's Weekend paper, print cover of the Holiday Books gift guide and an interior page

 

WSJ Books’s Holiday Books newsletter



Andrew Bannecker’s Instagram Post