London-based illustrator Alice Bowsher’s background in large-scale murals, children’s books and colourful character illustrations made her the perfect fit for the commission. Simple and playful, her scenes sensitively draw out everyday family scenarios populated by an ever-growing elephant character in her wonderfully naive visual style. In response to Save The Children’s script, the artist took a lot of inspiration from 90s children’s cartoons to shape the visual narrative: “The sort of things you would watch when you got home from school, Sesame Street, Arthur and Hey Arnold,” she says. “I feel the tone of these cartoons lends itself well to this campaign, focusing on how families might struggle to get by when children are off school during the holidays.”
Starting out as rough digital sketches, once the final drawings were defined with brush and ink, Alice scanned each individual frame in and handed them over to the team at artist-led animation studio Plastic Horse. “We’ve worked with Alice many times over the years, so animating her illustrations feels like second nature to us now,” shares David Gilbert, co-founder of Plastic Horse. “We begin by cutting up her illustrations in Photoshop and then use After Effects to manipulate them into what you see on screen. Animation can often be a meticulous process, but Alice’s illustrations are so full of character and charm that they make every project an enjoyable one to work on. It was such a great opportunity to be involved in this campaign,” he ends. “As parents ourselves, we can see just how vital Save The Children’s work is.”
Save the Children is working directly with families and communities across the UK, making sure children don’t miss out on childhood because of poverty. Through its grants programme, the charity has delivered more than 10,500 grants reaching over 21,000 children, working alongside more than 120 trusted local partner organisations in 30 communities across the UK. You can find out more about the charity’s global mission via its website.