Creating stand-out holiday designs for marketing can be a challenge during the busiest time of year for ecommerce, so our team put together some graphic design inspiration and handy tips to help get your creative wheels turning!
For this teaser-style ad, Ikea uses a minimalist design with lots of empty space and simple copy, along with a tiny fir tree branch to signify that anticipation for the holiday season is growing. Well-executed design that sparks intrigue and interest while remaining familiar and eye-catching.
Now is the time to get your gift guides out into the world! We particularly love this multi-product, grid-style layout which gives a clear idea of the brand’s offerings and a glimpse of how the products look.
HOT TIP: Creating curated seasonal collections on your website works hand-in-hand with this design approach and allows you to sending shoppers exactly where they need to go!
We love the use of dark colors in this email. It still feels like the holidays to shoppers, and works for brands that like to lean into a darker asthetic (instead of the usual bright red to indicate the holidays). The pink accents offer another variation on that bright red we’re used to seeing, and the dark green layered over an even darker background gives a modern look to the campaign. Using familiar holiday ornament shapes as masks for the product images takes this design to the next level and insures the products themselves stand out.
Gift cards are standard offerings when it comes to marketing for the holidays, especially with the tried-and-true “last minute gift” approach. You can, however, make your ads (and the gift cards themselves) feel extra special and precious by leveraging a high-resolution mock-up of the card itself. Add highlights and shadows to make the ad feel more tactile for shoppers.
Lean into the season with your photo shoots by dropping your products into wintry situations. RXBAR does a great job at featuring clearly seasonal content while keeping the focus on their products.
HOT TIP: Choose product colors strategically to play into the holiday designs for marketing!
Good Pair Days staging their wine products with wrapping paper is doing the trick! The brand’s colors are fresh and light, and they pull in a holiday focus by using the wrapping paper. This approach works well for pre-holiday ads, or for brands wanting a more subtle vibe in their marketing for the holidays.
Using product shots staged with holiday decor is a classic and always fun approach to holiday designs for marketing.
HOT TIP: Incorporating a monochrome color scheme for the background elements allows your products to stand out and feel festive without the design feeling too crowded.
Vintage never goes out of style. Classic holiday shapes and illustrations give a homey, nostalgic feel to any campaign. Plus, it’s easy to sneak fun typography and patterns into artwork like this, giving even more opportunity for festive flair!
Don’t underestimate the power of good copy and simple design. Scrub your vocabulary for a common thread between your slogan and popular holiday phrases. Clever copywriting opens the door to a memorable, brilliantly simple campaign.
We’re seeing lots of big companies staging their products to represent a classic Christmas shape or character. This is a good way to pull your audience in by getting them to pause and take time to understand the dual purpose of the design. We think this is a fun exercise that could be achievable with any product!
Get creative and use an unexpected medium! Giving ordinary brand elements a festive twist is the perfect way to spruce up your brand’s marketing for the holidays. Here, McDonalds used twinkly lights to illustrate their classic menu items, enmeshing the spirit of the holidays with their already recognizable brand.
Brands that aren’t into focusing on the holiday season can buck tradition while still capitalizing on the big shopping days with unique imagery and copy.
Go with a wintry theme. Icy, blustery imagery implies the onset of winter without a specific holiday focus.
HOT TIP: Cool blues, silvers, and deep midnight hues are a great way to change up your designs without hitting shoppers over the head with the “holiday” of it all!
Get graphic! Bright colors, cheeky slogans and fun illustrations can wink at the holidays without any of the (jingle) bells and whistles.
