Turning America’s Top Places to Live into Perfect Postcards

For over 25 years, Realtor.com has made it its mission to create a real estate market that serves everyone. With this in mind, the company decided to find the ‘Hottest ZIP Codes’ of 2023, using data from annual surveys to highlight the most desirable neighbourhoods to live in the US.

To promote this campaign with some vibrant visuals, Realtor.com teamed up with Brazilian design studio Black Madre to produce a series of retro illustrations that show off the top 10 places to live in the States, including Pittsford in New York, Trenton in Michigan, and more.

Black Madre’s team of São Paulo illustrators used vintage tourism posters from around the world - from as far flung places as Stonehenge - to inspire its designs. After researching the 10 ZIP Codes and identifying their most well-known and characterful landmarks, the team drew 11 key pieces of art in this nostalgic aesthetic and presented the locations in the most inviting light possible.

LBB’s Ben Conway caught up with Ícaro Yuji, Black Madre’s head of art, to discuss how the campaign came about, and the challenge of condensing an entire town’s ambience and landmarks into one picture-perfect postcard.

LBB> When did Realtor.com invite you to work on this project? And how were they to collaborate with? 

Ícaro> They contacted us in the middle of June, and that's when we started our partnership. However, we actually started the project at the end of July. They were very collaborative, with a very clear vision of the result they wanted to achieve. Their good taste in terms of what they expected in the end result made them a great client to work with on a job like this.

LBB> The artwork is beautiful - how did you decide on the style, colour palette and other design choices for the art? 

Ícaro> The main inspiration for the artwork were posters of cities and national parks that are very common throughout the history of the United States. It's a recurring style of painting, and it’s very popular there. 

For the colours, we were inspired by the brand's palette, but as our artwork was more atmospheric and dealt with landscapes, we had to make some adaptations so that the colours would work in these two universes - both representing the brand's identity and bringing the necessary ambience to a more atmospheric style of art, which a landscape is.

LBB> In your research, what were some of your favourite vintage tourism posters? Which eras did you take inspiration from the most?

Ícaro> This tradition of painting vintage tourism posters is very strong indeed, and there are many incredible examples of art in this style. My favourite was a poster depicting Stonehenge. There's a huge variety of beautiful posters from this location. (The location also helps a lot in terms of presentation!)

LBB> You had 10 locations to design for - how did you capture each of their individual characters and decide which landmarks to use? 

Ícaro> We researched in depth what the main characteristics of each city are and what style each city exudes in its composition, and that served as a reference for the basis of the posters. For example, Norwalk is a city that has a very beautiful pier and we made it the focal point of the scene. The typography, as well as the painting of each city, was also designed to represent each location, and took a lot of reference from vintage posters too.

LBB> How did you design the art to be enticing for potential home buyers? 

Ícaro> The client's initial intention was to represent the locations as something very welcoming, and we brought that into the aesthetics and how we approached the creation of the art. We used colour contrasts that bring that welcoming aspect - warm lighting, ambiance and atmosphere - to all the locations.

LBB> What was the hardest challenge you faced on this project, and how did you overcome it? 

Ícaro> The biggest challenge was the framing of each of the scenes, really. We needed to represent the cities in a similar way to the posters we researched. And each of these frames needed to be designed for the poster, not as if it were a photograph of the city. Many of the landmarks in each city are actually quite far away from each other in reality. But for the posters, we needed to show these landmarks all close together - as if it were a synthesis of the city in a single image. Making these compositional choices was really the toughest challenge.

LBB> What are some of your favourite posters, or elements from specific posters, that you’re especially proud of? 

Ícaro> It's very difficult to choose a favourite poster. I really think they all turned out spectacularly, but from a personal point of view, I really like the Southington poster. This is because of the way the natural reliefs were used, the natural structures of the city, in a way that turned it into a design object - almost abstract - and set up this landscape in a very inviting and very pleasant way. The Norwalk poster is also one that I really like because of the representation of the pier. It seems to me, a very inviting scene. It’s the place where I would live!