Festive favourites

05/01/2011 11:32:44

Christmas is always good fun in the design world, as we all try to come up with the best ideas for festive communications. (I didn't this year: I did the party instead.)

If viral reaction is anything to go by, the clear winner for 2010 was surely Quietroom's Santa brand book. You've seen it already, I'm sure: their tounge-deeply-in-cheek set of brand guidelines for Father Christmas.

Oops, sorry:

Santa Claus, not Father Christmas

This is just one of the many excellent jokes in the book, which raise it well above what might have been.

It's easy to suggest that a set of guidelines for Santa is an easy idea to come up with. (Chris Doyle's equally hilarious personal guidelines set up the basic concept, after all.)

What's not easy at all is hitting the bullseye page after page in the way the Santa book does. Perhaps many people could have come up with the idea, but it takes genuine comic gifts to come up with stuff like this:

Santa Venn Diagrams

Or this:

Santa whites

The comedy is silly, but intelligently and perceptively so. There's a thread of obvious anti-branding-bullshit in there too, which is my only quibble with it: it's occasionally heavy-handed on that score. But it matters little: if I'd done this, I'd be very proud of it.

Magpie find some more gems

Magpie posters

My other favourite Christmas mailing came from Magpie Studio - surely one of the best of the current crop of smaller design agencies. Their work is consistently witty and frequently beautiful.

For Christmas, they did The Charity Thing with typical charm and craft, producing posters of Holly and Ivy, two older ladies supported by the charity Contact the Elderly.

Magpie posters detail

Everyone involved waived their fees in favour of a joint donation to the charity. Lovely. (The shots by John Angerson are superb.)

Right. Better get thinking about my 2011 Christmas card.

Christmas