THE VERY MERRY ADVENT CALENDAR
Role: Graphic design, illustration, packaging, artworking
For Christmas 2021 toucanBox launched The Very Merry Christmas Advent Calendar - an ecommerce product filled with 24 crafts, recipes, books and activities to do in the countdown to Christmas. We wanted to create a calendar that would be inventive, creative and stand out amongst all the competition for children's advent calendars - this took the form of a large chimney filled with each activity in boxes that look like presents.
I had the task of creating the overall look and feel of the advent calendar and how the elements would work together. It needed to have a premium feel to it to justify a fairly high price, but simultaneously seem fun for the children.
"The Very Merry Advent
Calendar is a piece of art. It is outstanding and really well thought out and well made. The standard is really high. It is an absolute delight to see my son's excitement to open each day the little boxes and we are having so much fun."
Nátali, Dec 2021 (trustpilot)
The chimney graphics were a quirky, modern take on traditional Christmas imagery. Keeping the bricks in tones of brown provided a good neutral colour for the colourful present boxes to pop against it. The angled lines of the brickwork and unevenly sized bricks however created a more modern, energetic feel to the design. We added in occasional coral red bricks to add a twist to the traditional colour scheme. We wanted the presents to be the focal point and form this big burst of colour and patterns in the middle. To add more colour and excitement to the fireplace I designed add ons that they would get in the boxes and gradually add the props such as stockings and lights to their chimney.
Crafts and recipes from inside the 24 present boxes the children would open
each day. We designed mini instructions to fit in the boxes, with a different background pattern and colour scheme to differentiate the craft instructions, elf instructions and the recipes. The design tasks in this project was very varied and I had to design everything from a polar bear bauble to a reindeer cookie cutter.
A few of the props for the children to add onto the chimney as they were presented in the boxes. Tiny Christmas cards, a Santa Stop Here! sticker and two of the stocking designs for them to hang above the fireplace.
Mini illustrated instructions for the crafts.
Lifestyle photography of a little girl demonstrating how you pull out a box
at the bottom of the chimney, and then opening it to find the activity inside.
The Very Merry Advent Calendar generated a fair bit of press including being featured on ITV's This Morning show in a selection of 'The Best Children's Advent Calendars' 2021.