Promotional Gift by Photographer Michael Winokur

Promotional Giving
Giving can be a great way of promoting oneself. Whether it’s a special event (like moving into a new office) or an anniversary (like 10 years in business) or a holiday, each of these moments presents a reason to get in touch, reconnect and get noticed. Targeting a few select clients (depending on budget) with a creative and personal gift will leave a lasting impression and ensure that you’re remembered next time a project comes up. Creative appreciation and thoughtfulness can go a long way towards re-establishing relationships and/or creating new connections with clients and other business associates. So, next time, don’t just send a postcard, see if you can go a step above with an inexpensive DIY promotional gift. Speaking of which, check out the following promotional gift by Michael Winokur.

Promotional gift by photographer Michael Winokur
“I love my clients, most are friends and all are creative collaborators. Each year I pick something that I can brand and give to them. This year I chose the Sharan SQ35 pinhole camera which happens to be sold by my friend Doug’s company Noted. The Sharan camera is a cardboard kit with a pinhole lens that makes square images on 35mm film. Since the kits take about an hour to build I figured none of my clients would build them – so I assembled all 25 cameras, packaged them with film and decorated them with custom “Winokur Photography” stickers. In previous years I’ve given “private label” wine. Since this year’s gift was so much more labor intensive than the wine I had to keep the list quite tight. The cameras went to my current clients and some very special dream clients. ” – Michael Winokur

http://www.winokurphotography.com/

More about this project can be found on Michael Winokur’s blog. Special thanks to Neil Binkley at Wonderful Machine for first sharing this project with me.

The Making of a Holiday Card

This comes to us from photographer Eric Doggett in Austin, TX, who recently submitted his holiday card to No Plastic Sleeves. The card looks great and what I really like is this video he created that steps us through how he made it. Students and those new to the field should definitely check it out. He’s got more details about the “making of” and additional cards on his site at www.doggettstudios.com.

The Making of the ’09 Christmas Card from Eric Doggett on Vimeo.

Did you make a holiday promotion this year? Did you find this video informative? Share your feedback.
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Holiday Card from Chen Design Associates

About the Company
Chen Design Associates was founded in 1991 by Joshua C. Chen. Clients include: Verve Coffee Roasters, SFMOMA, Chronicle Books, The North Face, Public Policy Institute of California, Timbuk2, Pottery Barn, Stanford University, Yoshi’s Jazz Club, San Francisco Symphony and EMI Capitol Records.

Over the years, Josh and his team have received national and international recognition for their ambitious yet relevant design thinking. Nods from not only industry leaders like AIGA, Communication Arts, Graphis, Metropolis, Novum, and Type Directors Club, but also from the broader mass media including A&E Cable, San Francisco Chronicle, dwell and Organic Style confirms that good design isn’t just for a select few — rather, it has the ability to speak and connect to everyone. Most recently, CDA was one of twelve firms hand-picked to be part of San Francisco Graphic Design, an attendance record-breaking exhibition at the SF Museum of Craft + Design, showcasing the rich and varied SF graphic design community.

About the project
Collaboration of three companies — PaperSpecs, Chen Design Associates and Full Circle Press. PaperSpecs provided the paper, we provided the concept and design, and Full Circle the letterpress printing.

The card is inspired by holiday/advent calendars, where you open one “window” a day. That, along with the old-school “Concentration” game show where you try and solve a rebus puzzle provided the inspiration for the holiday promo. We came up with 5 themes that people could choose — from the more standard “happy holidays” to the quirky “television, beer & general laziness” to customize their own holiday message.

- Joshua Chen, Principal & Creative Director, Chen Design Associates

Did you make a holiday promotion this year? What was it?
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Unique Holiday Card by MOS

Here’s another great holiday card. This one submitted to No Plastic Sleeves by Simon Duhamel of Made of Stills, a montreal-based studio representing 4 photographers working in different fields. This piece really stands out as it’s certainly unique. The idea is fun and engaging. The production quality is also really good (done by VisualBox, a retouching studio). Click on the images below for a closer more detailed look. For those of you interested in how it was done – check out the link below offering a “making of” video.

Simon emailed this about the piece -

For our Christmas card, we decided to offer ourselves as toys to our clients and collaborators.
We shot each other acting as Cavemen, then sent out the shots to VisualBox, a retouching
studio, so they could transform us into real neanderthal men! Each one of us was boxed, given
a title and was assigned a totem animal as well as alternative weapons related to our respective
character.

The idea was to suggest Christmas without ever mentioning it. The piece could be folded so
any one of us could be on top, depending on who the package was addressed to. It was sent
in french and english versions to about 150 people.

Here is the Making of by VisualBox retouching studio:
http://www.levisualbox.com/making_of.html