HOLIDAY E-CARD
illustration
THE CLIENT
The Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada and the fourth largest in North America by tonnes of cargo, facilitating trade between Canada and more than 170 world economies.
THE BRIEF
Every year, the Port of Vancouver creates a holiday greeting card for employees to send to personal work contacts, suppliers, sponsors, and vendors. In previous years, the holiday card often used graphics that focused on container ships, and the role containers play in the holiday season. However, given that current global supply chain disruptions and challenges may impact the 2021 holiday shopping season, the client wanted to place less prominence on container ships, and more on the port as a whole. The card formatted both as a physical printed card, as well as an animated version that can be viewed online.
THE APPROACH
The client was interested in creating a “3D-like paper/cardboard cutout” depiction of the Port of Vancouver. I created a wintery scene with a palette of blues, and layers of illustrations depicting the Port of Vancouver, including Canada Place, bulk vessels, cranes at a container terminal, and the Vancouver skyline.
THE BRIEF
For the 2023 holiday e-card, the client wanted the card to represent the Port of Vancouver and its operations, but was open to creative ideas on how to approach this.
The client wanted the visuals to include the five business sectors at the Port of Vancouver: container, bulk, breakbulk, auto and cruise, along with the Canada Place’s five sails. It was important that the holiday card be inclusive of all religions and beliefs, avoiding holiday-specific iconography, but still feel festive and convey well wishes to their stakeholders and partners.
THE APPROACH
I presented 3 sketches/creative concepts to the client for initial review. We moved forward with the concept of hot chocolate in mugs with festive greenery in the background. The greeting “happy holidays” would be custom lettering to mimic the look of latte art. The mugs had an illustrated scene of Canada Place and the Port of Vancouver, and represented the five business sectors. To create the extra feeling of festivity, I suggested that we included some areas with gold foil, a subtle touch that really brought it to life in the final printed card.
