The Back Story on the Front Cover
Post by Danielle Kurtz, Creative Director at The Land of Nod
When it came time to design the concept for the front cover of our holiday catalog, we really wanted it to match the nostalgia of the classic toys found inside. We worked through many ideas of what it could be….chalk drawing, cut paper collage, a photograph of a toy.
Problem was, for some reason, it took us a (REALLY) long time to come up with and reject all of those ideas. So, we found ourselves, days before the catalog was scheduled to print, with no cover. We dug back through our inspiration and really fell in love with the images of vintage german glass glitter that one of our merchants, Jamie, had gathered.
We had the idea of taking our logo and turning it into one of these signs. Now there was a new problem. How do we get one of these signs in 2 days, and get it photographed for the book. One of our designers, Tim, had the idea to order up a cut foam-core version of our logo from a signage vendor. While he tackled that, our art director, Cara, tracked down the glitter and had it overnighted.
We wanted to hang it from a door, so we sent our photographer, Nate, to Home Depot to buy a new door, as there just wasn’t time to track down a wonderful old door, but the door we bought was too new. So, while Cara sat on the loading dock of our office gluing glitter to the logo, Nate stained the door with a cup of coffee. (By the way, if you try this at home, please note the glitter is, in fact, made of glass. WEAR GLOVES! It will cut your fingers, Cara learned that the hard way.)
Cara wired the letters together and we were prepped to shoot the next day. But, how were we going to hang this thing? I went home and dug out some old hooks that had belonged to my great grandma. I also gathered up lengths of tons of different ribbon (thanks to all my friends for the beautifully wrapped packages that keep my ribbon drawer in constant supply). The next morning, we settled on one of the hooks and some silk ribbon and got it all set. But, we needed natural light for the photo. So, back to the loading dock with the door, camera and computer. We crossed our fingers we’d get a good shot of the ribbon despite the unusually high winds that day. Our copywriter, Tony, put the icing on the cake with a fun headline. And we got the book to the printer just in the nick of time.
In the end, it was a true team effort. And, we hope you enjoyed our nod to holidays past.
Happy Holiday Shopping
Post by Danielle Kurtz. Danielle is the Creative Director at Nod and an over-protective mother of two. She’s also completely obsessed with Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and her Kindle, but not necessarily in that order. Danielle loves to craft, sew and crochet. Her current craft of choice is weaving tiny wall tapestries.