Mad Men MoFo: Behind the Scenes

This is the end of Vegan MoFo 2013, and it'll end as it began! This is the final post in which I share the secrets of Mad Men MoFo! "Secrets" sounds far more scandalous than I ever wish to be, and in reality, it's just some old fashioned planning and the Mad Men props used in the recipe photos. I'm always interested in the process of creating, so I though I'd share what I did to prepare for Vegan MoFo this year.

Ideally, I'd like to dress up as Joan Holloway and give you a tour of my lavish photography studio while eating candy cigarettes and sipping a martini, but in reality, this is Mad Men on a budget.

I started planning for Mad Men MoFo about a month in advance. Struggling to come up with content on the spot is no fun!

I started collecting objects, planning posts, and making sketches with the Mad Men props I had on hand. To keep track of what I had, I made an inventory of each of the objects so one prop wouldn't show up too much. Also so I wouldn't end up buying something and not using it at all. Fortunately, I already owned most of this stuff because hoarding antiques and photography props is what I do.

Sketches for Mad Men posts

While I love planning and organizing, making thumbnails is not my idea of a good time. But the sketches I made were helpful for getting started with the project, like this one for the first post, Sally's French Toast.

My desk stayed as "Peggy's desk" for about two weeks. But I stayed away from the Rocket Fuel.

Plans for Margaret Sterling's wedding right after JFK's assassination.

And a photo from this shoot that didn't make the cut:

I don't live anywhere that looks like Hawaii, but I can make a fakey Hawaiian backdrop with the Photoshop machine.

So I suppose this marks the end of Mad Men MoFo. What with limited time, and therefore a limited amount of posts, there's so much of Mad Men I wanted to cover, but simply couldn't within the constrains of a month. Like Pete Campbell. He didn't even get any airtime on here (perhaps that's a good thing). And more Joan! Luckily I can blog all year, so this won't be the last Mad Men post ever.

Thank you so much for reading my blog this month, and I hope you stick around for regularly scheduled programming! I'll let Joan handle the final words of Mad Men MoFo 2013: