The I Got Love inaugural statewide advertising campaign for Illinois Cares for Kids is set in motion with our charming animated spot. The campaign lets residents know that affordable early childhood education and care is available to Illinois families. Illinois Cares for Kids is a place parents, grandparents, caretakers, teachers, and childcare providers can access all things related to early childhood in Illinois.

The spot introduces a fresh, modern rendition of the Nat King Cole classic song, ‘I Got Love’, sung by super songstresses Meagan McNeal and Arla Vox. 1o8’s media plan includes online video, CTV, local broadcast, streaming audio, digital, digital OOH, social and search. So soon Illinoisans will be singing I Got Love on every street corner.

Watch the spot and you will immediately be drawn in by the visuals, the music, and the message. ‘I Got Love’ was a natural vehicle to musically convey the message that Illinois is full of people who care. The song expresses the core tenet of the Illinois Cares for Kids program, while the whimsical, colorful illustrations, characters and animations bring the message to life in a charming, welcoming way.

Reel Chicago has already made this their Reel Ad of the Week!

We started by leveraging a common visual language when it comes to early childhood books and imagery, using basic shapes and bold colors. We took those principles and built a series of simple characters. All the kiddos were circles. Adults, were larger but were rectangles, triangles, cylinders and squares.  While the shapes were simple we did add a touch of perspective here and there.

After we anthropomorphized basic shapes we decided we would add a little personalization by showing accessories from hats and backpacks to elements that show how inclusion is and accessibility is in the ethos of what INCCRRA is providing.

Shawn Smith was clearly the best artist for us to collaborate with on this job because his personal style was already in line with the direction. He’s an institution here in Illinois, and odds are you’ve already taken a selfie in front of one of his amazing murals.

We decided it was important to occasionally set the characters in a space, so we created minimal set pieces to tell more of the story. Minimalizm was key to the success of the visual style. The goal was to reduce the elements until every stroke was essential to its legibility and adorableness.

Animation-wise, we didn’t have to do much. The characters and illustrations were already telling the story without mucking it up with the equivalent of animation jazz hands.

Now that said, it takes a lot of expertise to create something that is playful and moves along without it being too over the top. To start, we rigged up the characters and gave them these sweet little movements. Simple eyes blinking, facial expressions changing and hairs bouncing add just enough character to these already minimal characters.

We did ramp up our animation on the opening scene when we bring you into the world and with our clever type moments. It was really important to us that our typography has as much character as the characters. So we leaned into our hand-drawn look and accentuated it with playful transitions… All the while being super legible!