⌘P renders the pages to a PDF and sends that to your printer, so you print the artwork, not the app.
DECK THE
FILES!
Black Friday, gift tags, Christmas cards that move, the last order dates, a calendar for the box, and New Year to close it. A small shop's whole holiday season, made in one place and all in the same colours.
The “Have a holly jolly Christmas” card in its Paper cut theme, open in Animate and zoomed on the 480 by 480 card. Space plays its four-second loop, and it runs on into a second pass without a jump.
HO HO!
THE SHOP
Wick & Willow has one busy season
Wick & Willow is an example shop, made up for this page: two people, a garage full of soy wax, and an online shop that sells candles. Like most small shops, they make a third of their year between the end of November and Christmas Eve. Like most small shops, they spend that stretch doing graphics at midnight.
The list is long and every piece has a deadline that will not move. A Black Friday sale. Tags for the gift boxes. A card for the customers who kept them going. The last date to order for Christmas. Something nice to put in each parcel. Then New Year, and, because a third of their customers asked last year, Lunar New Year. Here is the season, template by template.
11
Christmas GIF cards, before the extras
5
Black Friday looks, each with a landing page
12
gift tags on one sticker sheet
1
brand kit across all of it
TWELVE DOORS
The season, as an advent calendar
Twelve jobs, twelve templates. Open a door to go to the page that covers it.
7
A card for customers
Have a holly jolly Christmas (GIF)
2
Display ads
Black Friday display ad set
11
New Year
Cheers to the new year (GIF)
4
Gift tags
Sticker sheet
9
A gift in the box
Wall calendar
1
Black Friday landing page
Black Friday sale landing page
12
Lunar New Year
Lunar New Year greeting post
5
Last order dates
Holiday support-hours email header
3
Countdown post
Black Friday countdown post
10
Thank-you post
Holiday thank-you post
6
The advent reel
Holiday advent-calendar reel
8
The office party
Ugly sweater party! (GIF)
LATE NOVEMBER
Door 1: the sale
The season starts with Black Friday, and PopCraft has five full Black Friday looks: plain, coupons, neon, scratch card and ticker. Each comes as a set: a landing page, a display ad set, an email header, a countdown post and a deal reel, and four of them add a last-24-hours story. Wick & Willow pick the coupons look, apply their brand kit, and every piece comes out in their sage and cream.
The landing page publishes as a real website, at desktop, laptop, tablet and phone widths. What it does not do is sell candles: PopCraft does not take payments, so the buttons link to the shop they already have. The whole sale story, coupons and all, lives on sales and promotions, and the shop itself on sell online.
The Black Friday receipt deal drop template in Animate, zoomed on its story size. Space plays it: the till prints the deal slip and the claim button lands.
The Fieldwork workwear storefront template, zoomed on its Home screen. From ⋯, Brand kit… opens; the Gym & fitness example kit is applied, and Home, then every other screen, takes its red and yellow, its Bebas Neue headings and its shop name at once.
EARLY DECEMBER
Door 4: gift tags from a sticker sheet
Gift tags are stickers with ambitions. The Sticker sheet is twelve stickers on an A4 page, every one an instance of the same component. Change the words on the main one to “From Wick & Willow, with love” and all twelve change. Make a second variant for “Do not open until the 25th”.
Then Preflight. In the clip it flags stickers that cross the safe margin, which is exactly the kind of thing you want to hear before you print a hundred sheets. Nudge them in, run it again, print on sticker paper or card.
The sticker sheet template: twelve die-cut circles on an A4 page, all from one component. The Preflight tab opens in the right panel and Run checks the page for margins, bleed, hairlines, fonts and overflowing text.
MID-DECEMBER
Door 5: the dates people need
The most important holiday graphic is the boring one: the last day to order for Christmas delivery. Wick & Willow put it at the top of their newsletter with the Holiday support-hours email header, an animated GIF that plays in most inboxes. There is a winter cabin header too, if the shop goes quiet in January and wants to say so with a log fire.
The headers export as GIFs; the email templates export as email HTML, made of the nested tables and inline styles inboxes need. The email page has the details.
THE GIFT GUIDE
Door 6: an advent calendar that opens
The Holiday gift-a-plan landing page has the best hero in the seasonal set: a paper advent calendar standing in the snow, its twelve wrapped doors swinging open in turn under a string of bulbs. Below it, the gift written out as a gift tag, and a plain timetable of the holiday hours.
Fair warning: it is written for software you give as a gift, so every word changes. But twelve doors is a gift guide waiting to happen, and the shop puts a candle behind each one. The matching Holiday advent-calendar reel and link preview carry the same calendar to stories and shared links.
The holiday gift-a-plan landing page in Animate, zoomed on its hero. Space plays the entrance: a paper advent calendar stands in the snow and its wrapped doors swing open in turn under a string of bulbs.
20 DECEMBER
Door 7: a card for the customers
A printed card to every customer costs more than the candles. A GIF costs nothing. Have a holly jolly Christmas is the paper-cut card: layered hills in red, green and gold, scalloped bunting and a little tree, looping every four seconds.
They export it as a GIF and put it in the last newsletter of the year. For the customers who do not do Christmas, there are six Happy Holidays cards, from paper cut to watercolour, plus the solstice and the first day of winter. The GIF cards page has them all.
The “Have a holly jolly Christmas” card in its Paper cut theme, open in Animate and zoomed on the 480 by 480 card. Space plays its four-second loop, and it runs on into a second pass without a jump.
IN THE BOX
Door 9: a calendar for next year
Every parcel in December gets a small extra. This year it is the Wall calendar template: one month on A3, every day cell an instance of one component. They duplicate the page for each month, put a candle photo on top, and the shop's name at the foot. It is a print template, so it has pages, bleed and the Preflight checks, and ⌘P sends it to the printer with crop marks on.
OR A PRINT SHOP
THUNK!Export a PDF with bleed and crop marks, in RGB or CMYK. Fonts are embedded or turned into outlines.
A PROOF FIRST
CHECK!Four pages per sheet prints the whole run small, so you can spot a typo in March before you print March.
JANUARY AND FEBRUARY
Doors 10 to 12: close the year, open the next
After the rush, a Holiday thank-you post for the feed. On 31 December, Cheers to the new year in sparkle, or the New Year ball-drop reel if they are feeling flash. And in February, for the customers who asked, the Lunar New Year greeting post: layered cut paper with no zodiac animal, so it works any year. There are five Lunar New Year GIF cards too, with greetings in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese as well as English.
HOW IT GOES
The season in seven moves
- 1
Brand the season
One brand kit with the shop’s colours, fonts and name. Apply it to each template as you open it. - 2
Run the sale
A Black Friday landing page, display ads and a countdown post, all in one look. Five looks to choose from. - 3
Print the tags
Twelve stickers on a sheet, one component. Write “From Wick & Willow” once. - 4
Tell people the dates
An animated email header for the last order dates and the holiday hours. - 5
Send the cards
A Christmas GIF for the customer list, a Happy Holidays one for everybody else. - 6
Put a gift in the box
The wall calendar: a month on A3, duplicated for the year, the shop’s name on every page. - 7
Close the year
A thank-you post, a New Year card, and a Lunar New Year greeting in February.
THE OLD WAY
Five apps and a lot of mulled wine
| THE OLD WAY | IN POPCRAFT |
|---|---|
| A design app for the sale, another for the email header | One kit, one look, every piece of the sale |
| Gift tags written by hand at midnight | Twelve tags from one component, printed in a minute |
| A card company and the price of postage | A GIF card in the last newsletter of the year |
| A separate video app for the advent reel | The reel plays as you edit it and exports as an MP4 |
| Starting from scratch next November | Duplicate the project, change the year |
BEFORE THE RUSH
Open door one today
Click New file, search for christmas, holiday or black friday, and start with the piece that is due first. Sending cards to family instead of customers? Greeting cards is the cosier page.
ASKED & ANSWERED
Questions, answered
How many Christmas and holiday cards are there?
Eleven Christmas GIF cards, two for Christmas Eve, two for Orthodox Christmas, six Happy Holidays, plus winter solstice, the first day of winter, the office party, New Year, New Year’s Eve and Lunar New Year. Each is 480 × 480 and loops every four seconds.
Can I make gift tags?
Use the Sticker sheet: twelve stickers on an A4 page, all instances of one component, so changing one changes all twelve. Print it on sticker paper or card and cut along the rule.
Is the holiday landing page for a shop?
It is written for software sold as a gift (“Give a freelancer their Sundays back”), with a paper advent calendar whose doors open in turn. The layout and the advent calendar suit a shop’s gift guide; the words you will rewrite.
Does PopCraft run my sale?
No. PopCraft designs the sale and can publish the landing page as a website, but it does not take payments or run your checkout. Link the buttons to your own shop. If your shop is on Shopify, the Shopify themes feature turns a design into a theme.
Can I send the cards by email?
Export the GIF and attach it, or put it in a newsletter. The email templates export as email HTML, and the animated headers are GIFs, so they play in most inboxes.
Is there anything for Lunar New Year and Diwali?
Lunar New Year has five GIF cards, a landing page, a link preview, an email header, a greeting post and a red envelope reel. There is a Diwali thank-you post too.
THE MANUAL, FOR THE DETAILS
KEEP EXPLORING
Goes great with
HO HO! YOUR TURN.
Cards, gift tags, the holiday sale and New Year, in one look. Free to start, in your browser or on your Mac.