Wolf Trap Holiday Greeting
For the 2012 Wolf Trap email holiday greeting, it was important to visualize in a secular manner a celebration of the holidays and Wolf Trap’s appreciation of art and nature. An animated GIF embedded in the body of the email was used to ensure that the greeting would be immediately accessible to the audience, without having the additional step of clicking to view the greeting on the internet. It was critical that the first frame of the holiday greeting include the main message and still have visual impact as a static image since Outlook 2007 and 2010 do not support animation. On the day the e-greeting was distributed, Wolf Trap had a spike in class registrations and attribute it to recipients of the e-greeting visiting their website and registering.
The illustration style was inspired by the clean, powerful visual style of Charley Harper. The goal was for the greeting to be be colorful and cheerful while being sophisticated and artful. The geometric based, vector imagery minimized the
file size for the utmost quality and delivery of this greeting. Designed while at Levine & Associates.
Animated holiday email greeting. Click here if having trouble viewing image or animation.
Shown below is an example of an alternate direction for the greeting which ultimately was not chosen by the client. Inspiration came from the universal, secular symbol of the winter holidays—the snowflake. It is also a symbol of diversity and uniqueness, which can be found in the performing arts. The approach was aimed at delighting the audience upon detection that the snowflakes were comprised of recognizable Wolf Trap images that they relate to and are inspired by. The animation would have included alternating hues for each object bringing the snowflake alive through a twinkling effect—with the option of each snowflake being comprised of many of the same object or being comprised of many different objects.
Alternate snowflake concept which was not selected