Dan Saelinger Creates Tactile Scenes In Camera for Little Passports

Dan Saelinger is known for his ability to bring playful, colorful, and imaginative concepts to life, and his recent project with Little Passports demonstrates how that can apply to any product. Dan was tasked with creating a visual campaign that would resonate with children across different age groups, all while staying true to Little Passports’ brand ethos of exploration and hands-on learning. The result was a vibrant and tactile world that felt as if it had been crafted by the children themselves—something both engaging and authentic.

Dan took the lead in designing the set and crafting the visual narrative. From paper-crafted clouds to meticulously styled backgrounds, the project exudes creativity and attention to detail. This work for Little Passports showcases Dan’s ability to merge tactile, crafted aesthetics with thoughtful art direction, creating an engaging and playful world that speaks to kids and parents alike.

In our interview with Dan he discusses his creative process and how his hands-on approach brought the vision to life.

What was the creative process like for this project? 

Little Passports came to me knowing my affinity for playful and colorful imagery. They asked for my perspective on how to take their product and transform it into interactive and tactile images. It was a fun process because I had my daughter play with the product so I could better understand how a child would approach using the toys and in turn produce a creative that would appeal to the mind of a child. I wanted to do it all in camera to have that real, more 3 dimensional look. 

How did you decide which types of scenes to set up for each image?

Each scene is a different play kit Little Passports sells. And each set is for a different age group, so I wanted the scenes to reflect the different age groups that would use it and play into that demographic. So, we went with bright, poppy colors and created a playful environment with paper clouds for the younger aged kits and for the older kids, we leaned into a science fair aesthetic with volcanoes and robots. The challenge was creating an abstract world that felt unified but also spoke to the different age groups.

What was a highlight of this project?

Little Passports came to me because they wanted something different for their campaign and knew that my work would play into both the fantastical and practical aspects of their kits. I loved the freedom they gave me to play, pun intended, and experiment with the set design to create something fun and appealing to kids.