For the 31 Days of Holidays! On A Budget! logo, we wanted to fully embrace the idea of something handmade, created with very little money—and even less skill. After all, this stunt was hosted by the cast of RENO 911!, so it needed to feel as hilariously low-budget as the show itself.
When I started brainstorming, I couldn’t stop thinking about wonky paper snowflakes, messy holiday arts and crafts, and those loud price tags and clearance stickers you see during last-minute shopping sprees since holiday spending was right at the heart of this year’s theme.
The logo had to be perfectly imperfect, and that’s exactly where my process began.
As I started putting the logos together, I explored
the concept from every angle I could think of.
I experimented with the shopping theme, using paper tags and callout graphics as framing elements, but those quickly started to feel a little too off track. I tried a paper snowflake, but it came across as too plain.
I even went more abstract and stitched together a logo from scraps of past 31 Days designs, considering a "recycling" approach—turns out that was far too messy.
Eventually, though, one of my concepts finally began
to stand out from the rest, and I knew I was onto something good.
After some refinement and compositional tweaks,
I finally had the logo. Since “31 Days” is the recurring theme every year, we wanted it front and center in our Comedy Sans font. For the rest of the typography,
I aimed for a look that felt completely handwritten,
as if it had been thrown together with whatever supplies were lying around.
Everything was designed to feel like it was crammed inside a wonky construction paper ornament, with the final touch—some string and pieces of tape holding it all together. Perfectly imperfect.
As I started adding texture to the design, I could finally see my vision coming to life. The glittery text, the roughly cut paper frame, the masking tape, and the thin twine all came together perfectly. The logo looked exactly like a DIY holiday project put together at home, and I couldn’t have been happier with how it turned out.
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