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“Can we have a real bear please?”
2010, illustration
Client: Time Magazine
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This isn’t a regret really, but I didn’t have anywhere else to put it.

I have done hundreds, if not thousands of these things (illustrations) over
the years and I am still occasionally surprised (and amused) by a client
objection.

What you see here is (what I thought was) the final illustration for a Time
Magazine piece about Obama getting chummy with Wall Street and the
auto industry. But this wasn’t the final illustration.

They asked for a real bear.

To summarize: They were OK with the person-in-GM-logo-suit, but
had an issue with the person-in-bear-suit.

Let me add that I was totally happy to make this change for my art
director as I didn’t want to have to argue the conceptual merits of
person-in-bear-suit v. real bear with her. Lets face it: You do that and
you lose all future credibility.