Happy meal deal: two Indiana firms pull off a design project the "big boys' wouldn't touch.

Kennie Hill couldn't help being proud and a bit astounded every time he walked under the Golden Arches last month.

Right there -- on the McDonald's service counter and in the hands of kids all over the restaurant -- were pieces of his artwork. The burger giant could have picked any

Meridian Design Studio Inc. in Indianapolis -- of which Hill is president -- and Bean Graphics Inc. in Greenwood got the job because they had computer graphic capabilities that many of the national biggies either didn't have or weren't willing to use for the right price. The Super Mario Bros. images seen on the boxes and countertop displays were lifted right out of a videotape of the Nintendo game itself and manipulated on a computer screen to create the Happy Meal puzzles, mazes and games. The companies believe it's the first time such a process has been used to create promotional packaging and displays.

The whole idea was to try to get the feel of the video game itself,' Hill explains. There's a certain look and feel to it and that's what they were trying to capture."

Sam Bean, president of Bean Graphics, admits the project might have been much simpler had McDonald's and Nintendos imply asked an artist to draw the boxes. But, he says, that wouldn't do. It would look like it had been drawn. You can tell the difference between characters that are drawn and the ones that we pulled from the game.'

So the firms took the more complicated and innovative approach. They started with a videotape of the Super Mario Bros. 3 Nintendo game being played by an expert -- who, incidentally, was so adept at the game that he made it last about eight hours. Bean Graphics and Meridian Design Studio were provided with a 3/4-inch tape of the game, which they took to the indianapolis video production firm Telematrix inc. to transfer to a Beta format. From that tape, Bean was able to "capture" images for use on the boxes and promotional materials. Though he has such capabilities in his Greenwood shop, he opted to use Telematrix's computer system for the job.

Basically, the box art is a couple of pieces of art from different frames of the game,' Bean says. For the Desert Land box, for instance, we took a piece of ground from the game and extended it across the panel. We took a pyramid and enlarged it. Kennie did art direction as I created artwork on the computer.' Besides being able to manipulate the pictures in terms of size, the designers were able to change colors and perspective to yield special three-dimensional effects. They wound up with designs for four individually themed boxes along with countertop displays.