McDonald’s Corporation
Overview
In 2023, McDonalds worked with IW Group Agency to create a campaign that would celebrate Lunar New Year in select locations. This campaign would bring in Asian American artists to celebrate Asian identity and heritage via red envelopes and even an Augmented Reality filter inspired by the transition from the Year of the Tiger to the Year of the Rabbit.
Red Envelopes
I was thrilled to be part of a campaign that would see my culture represented on the wide-reaching platform of a McDonalds campaign. Red envelopes are a ubiquitous part of the Lunar New Year tradition and I received them from my elders almost every year growing up in Southern California and even throughout my young adult years visiting Taiwan. As tradition goes, now that I'm married, it has become my turn to pass out red envelopes to the little ones in my life!
The Team
Karen X. Cheng created the AR and exterior red envelope design while three artists (myself, Deb JJ Lee, and Kim Thái Nguyễn) illustrated inserts to showcase our respective heritages. As Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean and Vietnamese artists (respectively), the three of us represented a range of cultures that celebrate Lunar New Year. You can see more about Karen's AR work here!
Sketches
All of our designs incorporated red and gold colors as well as one of the 2023 Lunar New Year animals: the rabbit and the cat. I presented a wide range of sketches before McDonalds ultimately went forward with a rabbit shadow puppet design. The vertical design here would have been one of my personal favorites, but unfortunately that didn't work out given the final horizontal layout.
Shadow Puppets and Spring Blooms
My final rabbit shadow puppet and spring design was inspired by walks to 陽明山 with my parents in Taiwan over Lunar New Year, as well as the feeling of coming out of dark winters here in Seattle. In both locations, I eagerly await the first spring blooms and of seeing enough sunshine to create shadows!
Red envelopes were distributed at select locations as well as the San Francisco Lunar New Year Festival. I'm also looking forward to bringing them to Taiwan to pass out to my younger family members!
Art direction by IW Group Agency.