Scott Hull Associates

An interview with art director, Victor Jantzen

Client: LPK

Title of Project: Red Baron Pizza- character development/update

Target audience: Consumer Food Market Customers

What creative/business goals did you have with this project? The objective was for LPK to contemporize the overall brand look while incrementally elevating the quality impression and delivering a more authentic “pizzeria” experience. Essentially, we needed to update the Baron’s look while still maintaining the Historical uniform. To strike a balance between old and new.

Why did you decide to change/update your original Red Baron illustration? There had been consistent feedback over the years that the previous Red Baron character resembled, maybe to closely, a famous TV personality from the 80’s…Tom Selleck anyone? So eliminating that comparison was desired.

Mark was able to make modifications to the facial features that made the character feel less like a caricature and more like a believable historical figure.

How specifically did Mark improve your brand? Even at its smaller scale, the new Red Baron character Mark created has more presence and visual interest. The character feels reminiscent enough of the old one that consumers still recognize him as the Red Baron, but the changes that were made to both the characters pose and facial expression really transformed his personality to become much more noble and triumphant.

Tell us specifically about your experience working with our artist: Mark instantly understood the delicate balance in the need to push the emotive triggers while maintaining the character’s recognizability. He worked seamlessly from traditional sketches to digital renderings so masterfully that it is impossible to discern that it was not completely “hand crafted”. He was able to match a particular style that we were after, which was much more traditional than the contemporary graphic style Mark is most well-known for. He came through in a big way for us. We couldn’t of been happier with the results.