The Art of "Winning The Story Wars"

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THE ART OF "WINNING THE STORY WARS"

One year ago I started talking with a man named Jonah Sachs who was the founder of a communications design studio or shall I say a Story Telling studio called Free Range. Honestly It was creative love at first site, I loved his story telling through wise and empowering writing and he loved how my art naturally tells stories. We quickly began working together and I moved back to my home town of San Francisco from Brooklyn NY to work for his company. Jonah told me one day that he had been writing a book about how we need to tell better stories in our culture. I was excited by this idea and he wonderfully then invited me on a truly grand adventure to create the art for the book even before we even had a publisher.

I have never in my life had more fun on a project than creating the art for "Winning the Story Wars".

Written By: Jonah Sachs
Illustrated and Designed By : Drew Beam
Published: July 10, 2012

Publisher: Harvard Business Review

Cover and Type Design.

Note: Type was created by combing two fonts and then hand painting over them.

Chapter 1 "The Story Wars Are all Around Us"

Note: This image depicts the battle over the meaning of America : Glenn Beck and Annie Leonnard

PS- Thanks Juliet for modeling Annie's body- I sadly modeled myself for Glenn even though I'm prolly 1/2 his weight

Chapter 2 "The Five Deadly Sins"

Note: This image depicts marketing's five deadly sins: vanity, authority, insincerity, puffery, and gimmickry

PS - I modeled myself for all characters accept the wolf - You can clearly see me as Narcissus

Chapter 3 "The Myth Gap"

Note: This image depicts marketing in the myth gap: the Crying Indian, Occupy Wall Street, and the Marlboro Man

PS - Thanks to Katie for modeling our Occupy woman. I modeled the other guys and felt like I was dressing up for the Village People

Chapter 4 " Marketing's Dark Art"

Note: This image depicts Edward Bernays and the roots of marketing's dark arts

PS I had to psyche myself up to get myself super depressed looking to model this shot

Chapter 5 " Tell the Truth - The Art of Empowerment Marketing"

Note: This image depicts Abraham Maslow and the foundations of empowerment marketing

PS - You can see me clearly clapping - trust me I'm not that Narcissistic- I just needed models sometimes late at night and I was the only guy around to work with.

Chapter 6 "Tell the Truth, Part II - The Hero's Journey"

Note: This image depicts a hero's path for marketers: the life of Moses.

PS My best friend Rob modeled Moses for me- I was gonna pee my pants while he was pretending to be Moses- Let's just say he got really into it

SEE VIDEO : The inside look into the creation of the chapter 6 illustration

Chapter 7 " Be Interesting- Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars"

Note: This image depicts winning the attention of our caveman brains: Freaks- Isaiah Mustafa from Old Spice commercials, Cheats- Sisyphus from a Greek Myth, and Familiars- Moopheus from the "Meatrix"

PS Moopheus was so much fun to paint- He's known as a cartoon vector character and not dimensional. Isaiah's body was modeled by a dear friend who wants to remain anonymous. I modeled for Sisyphus- oh the magic of artistic license

Chapter 8 "Live the Truth"

Note: This image depicts the final climb to authentic breakthrough: Live the Truth

PS Took many shots with myself and friends to get the shot to draw from here- most of it came from taking artistic license

Wanna see these in 3D?

Well I was crazy enough to attempt at turning all my illustrations into stereogram 3D images. If you have 3D glasses - now's the time to bust em' out!