Winter Solstice Advent Calendar
Graphics, Illustration, Motion Graphics
Photoshop, Illustrator, After effects
Winter Solstice is an Enamel Pin Advent Calendar project consisting of 7 people and 7 enamel (also known as lapel) pins. Of those 7 people, 4 organized the project, including me. The idea to put this together came around Fall 2022 when our group of 4 were discussing advent calendars as some of us were unfamiliar of the concept. The talking eventually led to ideating the kinds of advent calendars we would like to host. Eventually, we all agreed that we strongly liked the idea of enamel pins, a product that has been enjoying a great a rise in popularity in recent years by both regular consumers and collectors. For our theme, we chose the Winter Solstice as it was coming up in the following months and near Christmas, which is traditionally when advent calendars go on sale and are opened.
Logo & Motifs
Social Media Marketing
The target audience for this advent calendar was primarily a digital one as you can find most collectors browsing online for pins. Our secondary target audience were potential customers looking to either enjoy an advent calendar experience or gift a loved one with it during Christmas. We primarily used two platforms for our marketing: X (previously known as twitter) and Instagram. At the time, it was popular to do a grid setup on Instagram displaying a large picture utilizing 6 different posts. I strategically placed the general info to go into the first post and the the artist reveal in the last post to drive up interest towards the reveal. The left image shows the original piece before slicing it up for Instagram. Since X didn't have a grid like view we simply used it as is.
Previews
Since our team is a group of people who came together to create this holiday product, we didn't have a already established identity or product we were known for unlike larger corporations boasting an advent calendar product. This is why we decided it was important to showcase a tease to excite potential buyers and let them know that the revealed product will be one that they can enjoy. We did this by having each participating artist create a backing card to appropriately match the theme of their enamel pin. After the art for the pins were finished I created GIFs revealing only a small section of art against their backing cards.
Box Design
For the box design, the team researched the formats of other advent calendar boxes on the market. We compared the materials and costs between several companies as inserts for the box would drive up production prices quite a bit. Finally, we settled and created a mockup of what we were looking for. The inserts would be placed inside a box with an open section to place the pins in their correct positions along with shredded paper to cushion them.
Final Reveals
To encourage participants to post the products they received and create an interactive atmosphere, our team started an unboxing week where we would reveal a pin each day alongside our customers. This made the unboxing more personable as we were there right along with them revealing each new pin. In addition this would help drive sales later for when we put leftovers up.
