It seems as though Wonderful Machine has quite the legacy of giving out awesome gifts around the holidays. This year, the responsibility of coming up with something great to send out to all of our friends rested upon my shoulders as the newest designer. This, however, ended up being quite a daunting task. When someone brought up the idea of getting Wonderful Machine branded koozies, I was skeptical. Could a koozie compare with this epic robot camera? The challenge of taking this ordinary object and elevating it to create something special and unique had begun.
We started thinking about the state of mind people are in this time of year. It’s not just about drinking eggnog and getting a gift or two–it is surviving the pitfalls of the most hectic holiday season. Shopping in crowded stores overflowing with grumpy people, dealing with those annoying relatives you never see, all while watching your hard earned cash disappear from your pocket. Sometimes to survive the craze, you need a little sip of courage and a whole lot of patience. From here, the Wonderful Machine Guide to Surviving the Holidays was born.
Each person’s own holiday trials and tribulations differ from one another and each of us has our own unique way of experiencing them. So for each of our koozies, each member of the team is pictured with a helpful (or…snarky) holiday tip of their own. To add some extra charm, I decided thrive on strength of illustration. Instead of plastering a photo of each of us, I went with a fun idea to of drawing the faces in a retro style.
In addition to the koozies, each person received a screen printed poster of every holiday tip. Every poster was printed by hand on a beautiful sheet of french paper, courtesy of Awesome Dudes Printing in South Philadelphia. They of course lived up to their name and delivered an impressive final product.
To top it all off, each poster and koozie came with a little custom gift tag with directions on how to use our koozie–just in case one is unsure how to enjoy their favorite beverage.