Chicago Italian Beef Editorial Illustration and Animation for the LA Times

Colorful illustration of a Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich with a sunray background and fries and an Italian ice next to it with the Chicago flag on the packaging, by Jennifer Hines — Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich: This editorial illustration was created to pair with an article for the Los Angeles Times food section and was both a static editorial food illustration for the Weekend edition in September 2022, and an animated gif sandwich animation for the online edition.

The Brief: To create a messy Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich to paid with an article for the Los Angeles Times newspaper print and online editions

Role: illustrator responsible for illustration and animation, including sketch concepts, illustration implementation, and animated gif with feedback provided by Art Director Kay Lai Scanlon.

Tools Used: Procreate app, iPad Pro, Photoshop, Apple pencil, Photoshop.

The LA Times was looking for an illustration of a messy and traditional Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich for an article by Lucas Kwan Peterson that launched in September/October 2022 for the Weekend edition of the paper’s food section (online it posted 23 September 2022 and was in the October 7 weekend edition of the printed paper). Being from Chicago, this was a fun job for me because I love Italian beef sandwiches so I was happy to create something colorful, fun, and tasty-looking to suit the brief. I was asked to focus on the sandwich, and this final version pairs an Italian beef sandwich with some Chicago-style fries and an Italian ice. For the online version, I created an animated gif version. Thanks to Art Director Kay Lai Scanlon for the commission and feedback on the composition.

You can read the article here: https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2022-09-23/italian-beef-sandwich-chicago-johnnies-portillos-the-bear

Black and white sketches of three different Chicago-style Italian Beef sandwiches by Jennifer Hines — The three sketches for proposed layouts for the editorial illustration on Italian beef sandwiches for the Los Angeles Times.

Image of the Los Angeles Times food section featuring an article of Chicago Italian Beef sandwiches paired with a colorful illustration of an Italian beef sandwich editorial illustration by Jennifer Hines — The article in print (online)! My Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich illustration live on the Los Angeles Times website for the food editorial article by Lucas Kwan Peterson in the Food section of the LA Times, September 2022.

Brightly colored food editorial illustration of an Italian beef sandwich surrounded by orange and yellow sunrays, with french fries and an Italian ice in the background featuring the Chicago flag on their packaging, by Jennifer Hines — The still final food editorial illustration image for the printed edition of the Los Angeles Times Weekender section of the Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich.

Image of a newspaper page with an illustration of an Italian Beef Sandwich with a yellow and orange sunburst and Chicago flag fries and Italian ice by Jennifer Hines — Final printed newspaper copy of the Chicago-style Italian Beef editorial illustration created by Jennifer Hines.

If you’d like a custom illustration similar to this project, please go to my Process page to see about getting a custom quote.

These images can also be licensed for your greeting card, product, or social media feed. Please reach out to me via my licensing page to inquire about purchase rights.