I had the extreme pleasure of working on a really cool project with Lesley Q Palmer and AARP last month. Essentially, it was setting AARP's stance on Social Security straight, as there had been some false information in the media about their view points and concerns.
The problem:
The youngest boomers are late 40s, which means for the next 20 years (approx until around 2025/2035), these boomers are making lots of $$ and funding the system. Even though some older boomers are starting to tap into their SS benefits, there’s still several years of boomers putting $$ into the system. Once 2025/2030 comes, and the last of the boomers retire, not only are they NOT paying into the system, they are taking $$ out, and so are the older boomers. This leaves generation X (which is a notoriously small generation) trying to pay for the HUGE generation of boomers social security benefits. So when the last of the boomers retire, the bottom totally falls out of the system.
My initial sketches played with the idea of Social Security running out, and also a little on it being sustained - as its possible, there are just steps that need to be taken...Lesley liked the "Americana" nature of the last sketch, and because the story was changing and growing in that direction, it made sense to develop some more with that feel. Here are a few of my attempts to marry "American" and retirement - there were more, but im fearful this blog post may go on forever.The last idea was perfect - mixed the elements we were hoping for, and still said "time is running out" - *sigh of relief*
I sometimes draw things in illustrator before i paint them, just so i know lines are straight and ellipses are right etc. heres a few that didnt make the cut:upon further inspection, it needed to look a bit more like a hat, so we went back and i paid a bit more attention to my sketch - Heres the final: and Lesley's wonderful layout:and some details from within:Thanks very much Lesley for the great project and great input. and thanks for reading, if you made it this far.