For Leckerlee’s 15th anniversary this year, I thought about potentially commemorating the occasion on a tin but wasn’t necessarily tied to having a dedicated anniversary tin like we had for our Tenth Anniversary.
Thematically, a tin centered around Berlin made sense, since that’s where I tasted my first lebkuchen and where the seeds were planted for the business that eventually became Leckerlee.
Separately, Christine and Eric from Strohl had proposed a take on folk textiles as a tin idea, and we agreed this would be a fun style to pursue.
As it turned out, Bavarian folk culture seemed a better fit with this style than the gritty, historic cityscape of Berlin, so we settled on that direction.
I didn’t want to force anything that didn’t fit with the style of the tin, so I let Christine and Eric know that any reference to our 15th anniversary was more of a “nice to have” than essential.
Christine and Eric explain the background and their general approach to this tin:
“The folk textile style that we took inspiration from isn’t limited to Bavaria, or Germany for that matter, but has variations throughout northern Europe. One of the best things about starting new designs for Leckerlee each year is that we get to dive deep into image research, which we love to do. We are almost always finding things that are new to us, even though we’ve been at it for 15 years.”
“In many of our tin designs, we try and bring a lot of the organic, handmade feel into the work. This design approach was interesting because it blended a needlepoint grid style with the similar aesthetic of pixels that we are all used to in the digital realm. A limited color palette as well as simple representations and patterns were key to getting the mood right.”
“We wanted to really show a celebratory scene across a few scenes that ultimately connected. We span from the center of a Bavarian village, complete with dancing around the maypole, to a rural alpine farm with animals. A border of alpine flowers as well as edelweiss, rendered in a blocky style, anchor the “fabric” of the tin. Other ornamentation depicts the crest and flag of Bavaria along with some heraldic Leckerlee bears.”
Designing for a cross-stitch style is very similar to working with pixels in digital format. In early sketches we tried to tackle complicated buildings and landmarks, but they were too much.
As we progressed, we tried to stylize items much in the way we’d design a logo: simplifying to only necessary forms that convey the form. The abstraction of sizes and proportions becomes a real part of the style.
Some of the more fun things to illustrate on the tin were the traditional outfits, including the dirndl and lederhosen. Classic German architecture, half-timbered chalets and ornate stone houses were other distinctly Bavarian elements we added.”
In the end, Strohl came through with the initial ask and found a way to tuck in a nod to our 15 year milestone, just beneath the lid as a little Easter egg:
Fifteen years of Leckerlee: we certainly couldn’t have done it without our longstanding design collaboration with Strohl!
