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Slideshow: Illustration Drafts of the Obama Baby Jan/Feb Cover Art

Rough drafts, vintage Saturday Evening Post images, and more details from the design process behind our Jan/Feb Obama baby cover art, as explained by Tim J Luddy, MoJo's creative director.

— By Nikki Gloudeman

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Fri Feb. 27, 2009 12:06 PM PST

Tim J Luddy explains: When we started developing Mother Jones' January/February 2009 cover, we were looking for a way to depict President-elect Barack Obama in a lighthearted way, while acknowledging the mammoth task he has ahead of him the minute he assumes office. After rejecting numerous ideas, including one of Hercules shoveling dung out of the Augean stables (you're welcome!), we were intrigued by the image of Obama as an innocent New Year's baby (the thinking being that "innocence" can mean "not guilty" of said mess, but can also imply "inexperienced.")

I arrived at Norman Rockwell's predecessor at the Saturday Evening Post, illustrator J.C. Leyendecker, who blogger Charley Parker claims to be the source of the New Year's baby metaphor. Aside from having developed the "Arrow shirt man" (reportedly a likeness of Leyendecker's partner of 48 years, Charles Beach), and Saturday Evening Post covers throughout the first half of the 20th century, it seems that Leyendecker created the New Year's baby image for a 1908 Post cover and continued to explore variations on that theme until his very last cover, on their January 2, 1943, issue.

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Nikki Gloudeman is a senior fellow at Mother Jones. For more of her stories, click here.

Comments

Yeah, "don't look down" is

Submitted by Viers (not verified) on Wed May. 13, 2009 11:08 AM PDT.

Yeah, "don't look down" is probably the best slogan. Its a pity I haven't seen MoJo's cover in Feb. Looking at this slideshow I can feel your totally positive and optimistic mood.