Jeff Jones

Backstory

This design marked a radical departure from the holiday card designs that I had previously done for the company. In previous years, I had produced designs that usually revolved around a winter scene with one of the company’s crane models helping to place decorations on a tree. For this design, I decided I wanted to explore the concept of the cranes as large “toys” that could be used for “playing” in multiple industries, which led me to the idea of placing various models in brand-specific “packaging” and placing them on the floor by a Christmas tree as if they had been delivered by Santa Claus.

Thanks to a wealth of design templates that are available, I was able to create the packaging graphics as flat files (.psb format) that could then be wrapped around individual panels to form the box in Photoshop. For the items, I was able to draw from an extensive library of photos that I was in charge of curating and remove the backgrounds by creating clipping paths in Photoshop, then pulling the image over into the packaging mockup. It took time to find a stock photo of a living room at Christmas that was taken from the floor level. But once I found it, it was easy to place the individual package mockups into the image and create the scene. Afterwards, it was a matter of creating drop shadows and textures to simulate the plastic windows on each box.