My procrastinating self finally accepted that the holidays are in full swing when I heard Trans-Siberian Orchestra in a salon last week. If you’re also behind on including the holidays in your marketing efforts, don’t despair: There are a few days left before Hanukkah and a couple of weeks before Christmas and Kwanzaa. And the best part of the holiday season is you can use the same graphics throughout December and January if you stick with secular, winter images.
You can call attention to your company by enhancing your website, snail-mail or e-newsletter, banners, posters and flyers. Here are resources to get you started. Naldz Graphics has 45 Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials, including how to design a Christmas-themed website and greeting card; how to create a Christmas tree, ornaments and a Santa Claus hat; and how to make entire wintry scenes with snowflakes, falling snow and snowmen. There’s even a tutorial for how to create text with snow effects and a pretty girl in a Santa suit. Have a photograph in which you want to make the holiday lights really pop? The MCP Actions Blog has a tutorial for how to enhance those lights using Photoshop. An image like this would look great on your company’s holiday card! Phases Design Studio has 25 Photoshop and Illustrator brush sets to create snowflakes, pine trees, ornaments, glitter, ribbons, cookies, a Nativity scene, wreaths and penguins. Yes, penguins = winter. GraphicRiver has holiday vector illustrations by Kai Loon that include candy canes, bells, a Star of David, snowmen, elves, presents and holly. The Graphic Design Blog reminds you to dress up your own blog and desktop, so it has 25 Christmas icon sets, including mistletoe, stars, reindeer, a gingerbread man, gift tags, stockings, snow globes and a sleigh. Kaboose has Kwanzaa clip art, and BillyBear4Kids.com has Kwanzaa icons. Finally, I wasn’t a fan of any of the Festivus tutorials I came across. If anyone wants to clue us in on how to design a Festivus pole, please do! Still in a “Bah, humbug” mood? Make yourself a holiday mix to boost your spirits!
Regardless, it’s always good to get an outsider’s perspective on web design. We are usually looking outward, from the inside. Yet, our work is intended for people who are from the outside, but rarely have the time to “look in”. So being able to see how they see is always worth our time. Very cool, I like them, thanks!