Christmas card 2023/2024

Fun. Festive. Colourful. These were my goals.

I chose a musical theme and used a xylophone to represent a Christmas tree. The keys and mallets are askew to give the tree some shape and to communicate the jumpiness of a musical jingle.

To match this jumpiness, I selected Swung Note—designed by Erica Jung and Ricardo Marcin—as the typeface. (It's available on Adobe Fonts.)

I balanced the colours and shapes with a minimal backround and an orderly layout. There's a hierarchy of elements based on size, from the large tree and the medium sized festive greeting, to the small date in the bottom right corner.

I was in the mood for some texture. So I played around with some risograph texture brushes in Photoshop to add some bristliness to the keys. And there you have it.