Comments on: Holidays as a Designer

By: dave nelson

dave nelson — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 08:56:22 +0000

the best cards i can find, and i actually get excited about buying are at truck stops.

i just loaded up on some cards of a painting with a horse running through the field with a lion’s head faintly in the sky with glitter on the lion’s mane.

By: sldesigns

sldesigns — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 16:41:18 +0000

Too funny. . .my family thinks I’m nuts. Top of my Christmas list: vintage light-up plastic holiday decorations. Seriously. Wrapping paper is a challenge and probably only important to the wrapper not the unwrapee. Bring on the gaudy lights and let’s snicker at the poor sods who think one color – inevitably white – is elegant. Almost as bad as University on a card. {shiver}

By: diane witman

diane witman — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 17:21:45 +0000

I hand lettered my own holiday cards this year. It just came about while sketching and so it turned into hand lettering each and every card. It was fun but I don’t know if I’ll do it again.

By: manofsuede

manofsuede — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 15:36:04 +0000

when my brother and I were kids, my parents always wrapped all our presents in the comic strips from the newspaper. for some reason as a kid it made me mad that they wouldn’t go out and buy paper. I thought they were being cheap, so I got smart and grabbed the comics from every paper from then on and hid them! what a brat I was…

By: derekb

derekb — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 22:25:02 +0000

I’m going to send this post to my whole family, this is exactly how I feel each year again! Except for the wrapping issue, since I always forget to buy it and I end up either newspapers or magazine spreads. Or alumium foil (if I’m in a festive mood).

By: Bill Kerr

Bill Kerr — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 06:00:31 +0000

Yeah, I got sick of trying to find good xmas cards… so this year I am letterpressing my own. Plus, DIY always feels warm and fuzzy.

By: Mike Miller

Mike Miller — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 05:18:51 +0000

My parents always wrapped the presents for my brother and I in the funny pages (we grew up in Blue-collar Buffalo, NY). I think at one point when I was little I actually thought they sold it on a roll like the rest of the wrapping paper…

Those were the days…. curse you horribly easy and practical (yet soulless) gift bags and tissue paper…

By: Joe Moran

Joe Moran — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:09:16 +0000

I use the funny papers to wrap presents. Its been a personal tradition for the last 10 years or so. Poeple kind of laughed at first, but now people know the gift is from me right away. And I’m amazed how people actually take care to not rip the funnies. And then they read them, too. Makes for some good conversations.

VR/

By: DC1974

DC1974 — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 15:54:17 +0000

The problem with cards is the nice ones are really, really expensive. There are these beautiful cut paper holiday cards (that open like a pop up book) from MOMA that I may indulge on for a few people. But in the end, it’s probably better just to make your own.

The high cost of living in DC (and the relatively low pay) means that I rarely buy what I want when I see it — but I see stuff all over the place and so my gift list becomes like a bad scavenger hunt. I tried to minimize that problem this year by including a list of like 25-30 books that I want, but my family doesn’t seem to like to give books. So I try to include nice clothes on the list, so my family (who thinks I dress like a bum) can feel like they are positively contributing in some way to my outward appearance.

Sure, a lot of that will be exchanged — but that’s the kabuki dance of gift giving.

By: tkd

tkd — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 14:52:23 +0000

I can relate to the part about cards. I hate hate hate buying cards. Funny cards, not as much, but I can never find anything I like. A lot of them look great, but just don’t work for me. The copy…the rhyming…eh.
So I’ve ended up making cards for my wife and kids for every holiday as long as I can remember. Other people too occassionally. I’d make them for everyone, but I’d end up spending most of my time making cards during the year, I think.