Every year, just after the rush of the holiday season subsides, we barely have time to catch our breath before it's time to begin the tin design process for the next year.
But we get really excited about this process each year! We've been working with Christine and Eric Strohl of the San Francisco design studio Strohl for 13 years, and the collaborative process is always super fun.
This year, we knew we wanted to do a tin around the Alps, but something a little different from 2018's Alpine Holiday tin. Reminded of fond memories of hiking in the Alps, we thought about setting it in the summertime.
We're always trying to balance wintry, holiday, non-holiday, and German/European themes when coming up with tin ideas, and a summer Alpine tin seemed like a good fit with the other designs we had in mind for this year.
Once we nail down an idea for a tin, we start gathering the inspiration to help convey mood and content possibilities. Of course, there was plenty of gorgeous imagery to call upon...
And then Christine and Eric get to work on bringing the idea to life! Here you can see some of their very early sketches exploring composition and layout...
Here they start to work out some of the details...
...including how the characters might be drawn...
It's critical to consider how the illustration will look on a three dimensional tin and make sure the scale works:
Eric and Christine have been designing our tins since 2011. The design process takes several months, but they make it look easy and it all comes together flawlessly in the end:
The Alpine Meadow tin will be available for purchase when our online store opens on October 15th.
Follow us on Instagram for a first look at the next two tin reveals!
