Foreword
A bit of Context
Santa likes traditions just as much as modernity.
During the industrialisation era, he quickly realised the harmful effects it had on the ice floe that surrounds him every day! Since then, he always did his best to be careful of the environment with the production of the Christmas factory.
But Santa is not just mindful of ecology!
He’s also always been mindful of others: humans, elves, animals…
Notably, he's always been careful that no kids, whatever their differences, would be put aside in the delivery of the presents.
He also always adapted the workplace for his elves so they could make the most beautiful presents in the world, even when they have a disability! Yes, even elves may sometimes have disabilities! Don't you know Zach, the spy elf, who has ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder)? Or Malina, the elf who builds the fastest race cars and who is deaf? Or, yet again, Teddy, who takes care of the reindeers and who has a vision impairment?...
Santa understood well enough that, nowadays, if you want to have a brand that kids as well as adults appreciate, you have to be mindful of sustainability but also inclusion. Which is perfect since it corresponds to the values of the Christmas Factory!
Therefore, he decided to change the Christmas factory's corporate identity, so he could align it with today's trends as well as values. He wants to show the world that, in the North Pole, those are things we care for (and that it's not just greenwashing nor handiwashing !).
For this, he hired Candy Canes, an elf highly known in the whole world for creating modern and accessible corporate identities.
Gap analysis
The current corporate identity
Candy Canes first analysed what were the gaps in the current corporate identity of the Christmas Factory as well as the new requirements:
Colours
Santa no longer wants to be associated with a certain soda brand, which, in addition, gives him strong heartburns and makes him see red every time!
And anyways, he wants to change his colours a bit !
Also, Candy Canes noticed that some of these colour combos do not respect the contrast ratios mentioned in the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) :
- Red and Gold : Depending on the colour codes used, they are sometimes not contrasted enough,
- White and Gold : … let’s not even mention it, it’s a disaster!!!
Logo
Simple: there’s none ! Toy shops and suppliers use whatever they get their hands on! Here is Santa's face, there, a candy cane, here again, a Christmas tree…
Typeface
At the beginnings of the personal computer era, following his printer’s advice, Santa chose the Times New Roman font.
But this font was never his favorite.
He much prefers using cursive and italic fonts that mimic his own handwriting and bring out the Christmas spirit… unfortunately, those fonts are often hard to read for some kids, for example for those who just started to learn how to read, or for people with dyslexia or with vision impairments.
Illustrations and photography
Mrs. Noëlle Klaus, Santa’s wife, who is at the head of the mail reception department, receives more and more complaints about the lack of inclusion of the Christmas illustrations and pictures: in some images, you will see Santa in different settings, in others, kids playing with toys, or in others again, elves at work… but never showing people with a disability.
Tone of voice and communication style
Santa was always very expressive and eloquent, often starting long monologues whenever he wrote to kids or shops and suppliers, or whenever he addressed a speech to the employees of the Christmas Factory.
Here again, Mrs. Klaus received an alarming report from Zac, the spy elf, on the number of kids who do not understand the letters Santa addressed to them.
In addition, suppliers, elves, Mrs. Klaus, and even the animals of the ice floe dream that his speeches would be a bit more straight to the point.
Like Julie the elf, who is in charge of tasks management:
“Time means presents! With the amount of work we have to do in less than 364 days a year, we don’t have the time for those ornamentations!”
Communication tools
Then, Candy Canes tried to understand what were the internal and external communications used by Santa and the Christmas Factory. Here are a few examples:
Letters
Each year, Santa sends to a certain number of children, mostly the nicest of them, a letter in response to theirs.
The Christmas Factory’s website
For a few years already, thanks to his website, Santa allowed children to know more about his history and about the making of their favorite toys, to follow his travels around the world on Christmas night, and even to send him messages!
The catalog of toys
It is essentially destined for suppliers and shops, available in print and PDF versions. For a few years already, this catalog is also available on the web.
Digital presentations
During the whole year, Santa travels the world to meet suppliers and shops and presents them with the latest products and inventions that will be available for the next Christmas. In addition, he uses more and more of those types of presentations to communicate internally with the elves of the Christmas Factory.
Social Networks
This year, Santa decided to open up to social networks in order to better communicate with the rest of the world. He even hired Cynthia, an elf for whom Instagram no longer has secrets, to animate his social networks!
Instant Messaging
Pneumatic messages are old news! Now, from the workshop to the sleigh hangar, through the reindeers barn and the mail management office, the whole Christmas Factory communicates through online instant messaging!
The new corporate identity of the Christmas Factory
The elements of the new corporate identity
Once with all this information at hand, Candy Canes rolled up her sleeves, got to work and here is what she proposed to Santa.
Colours
Candy Canes proposed to Santa to go back to his roots with green as the new main colour. Not just any green. Pine tree green and all its range of pine tree green shades: from the dark green of the old pine trees to the light green of the young sprouts.
So Santa does not need to change his whole wardrobe, he will be able to associate it with his eternal deep red as a secondary colour. Various shades of this red are also proposed, verging on a dark brown, mimicking the colour of tree logs and chocolate.
However, it is important to keep in mind that dark red shades should not be matched, on paper and digital support, with dark green shades as those are not contrasted enough. They may, however, be separated by a golden colour border, which remains present as a tertiary colour, allowing to bring a light and shiny touch to the palette.
Black and White will be the colours used mostly for texts.
Candy Canes explained to Santa:
“What is key, is to always know how to associate the colours so that you keep the best possible contrast.”
With this explanation, she provided a colour contrast matrix which indicates, for each colour combo, the validity of the contrast.
She specified:
“Share it with all of your elves so that, whatever documents they produce, they can make sure to apply good colour combos.”
Logo
For the logo, Candy Canes chose… Santa’s hat, of course, which colour will now be green, with three little red berries on the white fur.
She keeps a bit of tradition and associates it with a modern and refined design.
The logo can be provided in the different shades of green depending on the background colour where it is displayed.
Typeface
The choice of Typeface was quite a challenge for Candy Canes.
Indeed, usually, finding a font that is legible is already a difficult thing. So, when keeping the Christmas spirit is a key criteria, it strongly raises the level of difficulty!
Candy Canes finally decided on two fonts:
- For body of text and long contents: Candy Canes breaks away from tradition to ensure an almost perfect legibility for kids: it'll be the Atkinson Hyperlegible font, created by the Braille Institute. Atkinson Hyperlegible is a font studied specifically to improve legibility of people with vision impairments or dys- disorders (dyslexia, dysorthographia, dysgraphia, adhd,…).
Moreover, the rounded shape of this typeface allows to keep the softness of childhood, while remaining modern, professional and legible. - For titles, catch phrases and short quotes from Santa, Candy Canes decided to use the Mystery Quest font created by Sideshow, to keep the Christmas spirit while maintaining a minimum of legibility.
Illustrations and Photography
Candy Canes commissioned Loann, the renowned elf who inspired the greatest photographers, to take pictures of his pairs busy working, but also pictures of kids around the world admiring the shining and animated shop windows, writing their letters to Santa, opening their presents, …, all of them with or without disabilities.
Elea, the Elf illustrator and a great friend of Candy Canes, proposed a few inspirations of potential christmas illustrations, showing adults, children and elves, that followed the same diversity and inclusion criteria.
Tone of voice and communication style
For every type of communication, it is important that the messages and information provided go straight to the point and are structured and organised.
For everyone to be able to understand the communications coming from the Christmas Factory, Candy Canes explained it is essential to keep the vocabulary and expressions at a level at which even an 8 years old child can understand.
To ensure that Santa adapts his speeches and letters to children worldwide, Candy Canes booked for him an Easy-to-Read training with the elf Carina.
She will teach him to combine a warm, friendly and benevolent tone with a simple inclusive and accessible grammar.
For letters, catalogues, communications on instant messaging and social networks, the tone can be jolly and fun.
However, for communications with suppliers and shops, it will need to be a more professional tone. This tone can still maintain the well known unchanging positivity of Santa.
Implementation of the new identity
Candy Canes created new templates for the different documents and presentations that all the employees of the Christmas Factory will be able to use. These templates contain various examples of how colours should be used to always ensure good contrasts:
For text documents templates like Santa’s letters, contracts etc., the new logo of the Christmas Factory with a text alternative, but also ordered heading styles are predefined for the different headings levels… ;
For presentation documents, a theme was created, including slides formatting, text zones and shaped components using predefined contrasted colours ;
For PDF files, examples of catalog and other documents were provided for Lawrence and Maeva, the elves of the Christmas Factory’s design studio, to use for inspiration.
Candy Canes also worked on a set of guidelines, for each element of the corporate identity, which will be distributed to the whole of the Factory, with, depending on the job occupation, specific accessibility and inclusion recommendations.
Finally, following Mrs. Klaus request, several training sessions were organised, where Candy Canes will present to each team how to use the elements of the corporate identity appropriately, including accessibility and inclusivity, depending on their job occupation.
Conclusion
Candy Canes concluded her presentation of the new corporate identity by indicating that an organisation’s corporate identity lives and evolves with it:
“The new corporate identity of the Christmas Factory will always be destined to be used in a variety of ways depending on the medium. It will also be evolving following the trends throughout the years.
In addition, you may potentially use new communication medium that were not studied during this process, or that do not exist yet.
In any case, it will be key that you always keep in mind accessibility and inclusion when you make it evolve.”
Now that the new corporate identity of the Christmas Factory is finalised, Santa wishes to get its website redone.
Here again, he decided to be supported by a company specialised in accessibility and ecoconception. Some well known companies have already answered the RFP: Lovely Access, Tetramagical, Noëlmensa, Deck the Alls, The Poinsettia Group inc., AbilityNight ...