About

The Carson-Dellosa Art Style refers to a style of images that was infamous for being used in several grade school educational posters. The style, created by the Carson Dellosa Printing Company, is defined by characters having flat faces and exaggerated, thin smiles. The style has been a source of 90s nostalgia, as well as a source of parody artwork and edits using the art style.

Origin

The first known appearance of the Carson-Dellosa style being used as a meme appeared on Tumblr in 2015 when thegooftroop^[1] asked "who was that one artist who drew like what felt like every school decoration ever and why did they draw the same face face on everything", then posted an example picture. It was later replied to by Tumblr user mister-kitschy on May 2nd, 2015 with a crude drawing using the style and the text "I always thought their faces must open like reverse drawbridges.". The thread (shown below) received over 132,000 notes in over seven years.

Spread

On May 17th, 2019, Twitter user @XtremerSadiq^[6] posted that they'd discovered the source of the images in question was the Carson Dellosa Publishing Company. A follow-up tweet by @BeeTee_RUS^[7] identified that the artists were teachers Patti Carson and Janet Dellosa, the founders of the company.

The meme reappeared on Twitter on August 11th, 2022, when @Xploshi asked "What is the most lifeless art style you’ve EVER seen that lacks any personality and makes you almost angry to look at",^[2] to which @AisforAwesome15 replied "the carson dellosa style" along with an example Carson-Dellosa poster of a child sitting at a desk (shown below). The reply tweet received over 10,000 likes in less than a week.^[3]

Following @AisforAwesome15's tweet, parodies of Carson-Dellosa images began spreading on Twitter. These often took the form of other popular characters being redrawn in the style. For example, on August 14th, 2022, Twitter user @HYENABLOOD^[5] posted a redraw of Saturn Devouring His Son in the style, gaining over 340 retweets and 1,300 likes in one week (shown below, left). On August 18th, 2022, user @MissMcCloud64^[4] posted art of Fox McCloud in the style, gaining over 20 retweets and 110 likes in four days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References