In general, a tin is a unique design format because it doesn’t have a beginning or end. Accordingly, every composition needs to keep that in mind, and it can be tricky at times.
Every once in a while, we’ll pick a subject that is especially suited to the particulars of the format. One example is our 2017 Carousel tin, which fit the circular format perfectly.
A train also makes for a good subject because it has cars all around which create a rhythm, and then there’s also the opportunity for the caboose and engine car to greet each other at the seam.
Out of this came the idea for a holiday train, filled with animals having distinctly human parties and conversations.
Our tin designers Christine and Eric Strohl describe how they worked on this design: “We always do quite a bit of pencil sketching for our tins. It's impossible to get the characters down if we start on the computer. In this case, we drew a bunch of anthropomorphic situations and chose the best ones to bring into the final design.”
"We find sweaters on animals particularly hilarious. And the format was just asking for the squirrel at the front to launch a friendly snowball at the fox in the back!
Some things that we thought would be really great (like teddy bear bunk beds and a dodo that has escaped from its cage) didn’t work once we moved to digital illustration, so we just kept drawing until it worked.”
While it’s nice to make the artwork on the lid interact with the artwork on the body of the tin, another challenge of the format is that the lid can (in everyday usage) always end up in any position on the tin. This possibility has to be considered when designing the lid, because the artwork has to work no matter where the lid happens to land on top.
For this design, Strohl put the puff of the train engine smoke up on the lid along with the snow, so that the lid feels well integrated.
As for the color palette, Christine and Eric played with a few possibilities. “We tried some different colorways for this one, originally thinking a night train would work best. We were wrong (It happens)! A full-on snowstorm had more festive appeal than a starry night, so we landed there."
"The colors for this tin were meant to be bright, but one step off from the primary color palette to get some interesting tones in there. The thought was to keep the rest of the tin a bit monochromatic and gray, so that the train would be the focus and feel extra cozy under a pile of snow.”
