Why Is It So Hard To Find Someone Who Can Draw An Eggplant?
Running a dynamic food publication is not easy. New challenges arise every day as we attempt to tackle the many important and serious issues related to telling people what to eat.
One thing that we at The Banana Boat continually struggle with is, “how can we make this three thousand word essay about an eggplant more engaging?” Have you ever seen an eggplant? They’re fucking crazy looking.
At first, we tried using a photo. But eggplants are easily spooked, and all of the pictures came out super awkward looking. So we decided an illustration would be best. That’s when things took a turn. We went out to everyone: In house designers. Out of house designers. Street artists. Finger painters. Nothing worked. Nobody could draw an eggplant — nobody could even come close.
For our last and final attempt, we turned to a high dollar graphic designer who is well known in the food media world for his ability to draw fruits and legumes. Even he found the eggplant to be an un-slayable dragon.
“When Chris Stang approached me with the task of drawing an eggplant, I shrugged and thought nothing of it. I’ve drawn hundreds of vegetables before this: carrots, peas, okra. If only I could have predicted the Pandora’s Box worth of revisions it opened, I would have never taken the gig. After the 8th round of revisions, Chris informed me he had already met with 12 other graphic designers and illustrators to try complete this insurmountable task.”
— Tom Wahlin, local graphic designer
At first, it seemed so simple. Purple, green, kind of shaped like a banana. What could possibly go wrong? That attitude was proven very wrong after days of painstaking frustration. I just don’t get it.
So that’s where things stand. We have an eggplant story that the world needs to read, and no way of publishing it until we have the proper imagery. To make matters worse, deadlines for Pulitzer consideration are fast approaching.
Then again, Elon Musk or whoever it is that makes the emojis managed to figure it out. How do we get in touch with him?
