National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Design Studio
Seiniger Advertising
Creative Director
Tony Seiniger
Artist
Chris Consani
Artist
Dave Christensen
Client
Warner Brothers
Date1989
MediumOffset Lithograph
Dimensions40 1/8 x 27 in. (101.9 x 68.6 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LineGift of Dawn Baillie, Poster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.8139
DescriptionThis project marked one of the first times designer Dawn Baillie served as the art director on a poster, guiding two other people while she designed and assembled the composition. The idea, however, came from Tony Seiniger, the creative director. Once the client approved the concept, the agency hired Chris Consani, an outside illustrator, to paint the image. At the time, agencies usually consulted The Workbook— a publication promoting all the available artists in the field—to find potential fits; however, because illustration is expensive and time-consuming, they often ended up hiring artists they had worked with previously. While the painting was great, Chevy Chase’s likeness required additional expressions, so Dawn had the original art scanned, and worked with Dave Christensen, an in- house sketch artist, to create alternative heads of the acor that could be superimposed on the composition. To assemble the final image, Dawn resized a C-print of the painting (with the new head) to the dimensions of a movie poster and repositioned some of the individual gift boxes. She then designed the typography and inserted it into the composition with chromatecs. Once the client had approved the design, a dye transfer print was made showing how the image and type were meant to fit together—and from all of this, the printer produced the final poster.On View
On view
