Yep, it’s that time of year again where the whole agency get into the festive spirit and have a go at coming up with new ideas for the agency Christmas card! This year’s challenge certainly caused a stir with an extra sprinkling of motivation coming from the special prize of a brand spanking new iPod Nano for the winner. So everyone quickly huddled in their groups making sure their ideas weren’t over heard – we’re not competitive – honest.

And this year’s winner is… drum roll… Mrs Katie Shoard! Our Senior Copywriter.

The judges had a hard time choosing the winner but decided to go with Katie’s copy-based route that uses a quirky, colourful illustrative design that pokes fun at Christmas clichés and conveys Red C’s fresh approach.

Katie’s idea was inspired by those tired festive clichés that are recycled every year like tatty Christmas decorations. There was one in particular that kicked off the idea – she’d seen a sign from an NCP car park that said the company ‘had Christmas all wrapped up’.   Well, really. Does anyone associate car parks with the spirit of Christmas? Regardless of how untrue these statements rings, it’s hard to avoid them.   ‘Tis the season for festive clichés… The Twelve Days of Christmas is always popular… and yule see in-store messages offering Christmas ‘crackers’ and deals with ‘all the trimmings’.

A week before the Christmas card deadline, Katie had been introduced to the work of illustrator Linzie Hunter by Nick Cliffe, our Senior Art Director. The timing was perfect. It was one of Linzie campaigns in particular that gave form to Katie’s concept. Linzie had used phrases from spam emails she received and in her own retro hand-illustrated typography, taken these mundane and meaningless words and turned them into playful works of art. So, with the desire to take the tired, overused festive phrases and give them a fresh treatment, Katie started to collect these clichés and put together a concept that would, with Linzie’s help, turn them into beautiful, quirky illustrations.

Originally from Scotland, Linzie studied Illustration at Chelsea Collage of Art Design and now lives in London. Her work is all created digitally using Photoshop and has featured in books, magazines and international advertising campaigns. The beauty of Linzie’s work is that you see something different every time you look at it and her love of all things vintage is clearly evident. Her typography gives each letter an individual and quirky character of its own.

Linzie clearly loves Christmas and along with creating Red C a fabulous card, she’s created several of her own along with some beautiful wrapping that puts mine to shame.

We all hope you like our Christmas card and even though it was the winner there were lots of people who produced some great ideas – mainly because they were desperate to get their hands on a new Nano! So even though they didn’t win, in the true spirit of Christmas (and underminding Julian who reckoned she should keep it) Katie, who already has one, gave the iPod to Dawn, our Studio Manager. Don’t you just love Christmas?

Tags: Advertising Agency, Advertising Illustration, Chelsea Collage of Art Design, Christmas Card, Copywriter, Creativity, Design, Design Agency Manchester, Direct Marketing Agency, Festive Season, iPod, Katie Shoard, Linzie Hunter, Manchester Design Agency, Marketing Agency, Online Agency, PPC Agency, SEO Company

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