Meet the Big Winner of the HolidayZ Design Challenge

Each year we invite our Creator community to create collections of holiday cards and accessories for the HolidayZ Design Challenge. And this year, we wanted to kick it up a notch and have you, our customers, vote on a ‘customers’ favorite’ winner. Alas, there was a surprise coming for us and for our winner.

The votes have all been tabulated and we’re excited to announce that our ‘customers’ favorite’ collection AND the first place winner of our challenge is “Vintage Retro Merry Christmas” created by S C DESIGN, in her store COFFEE + PAPER CO! Both our in-house judging team and our customers loved the collection, and we are thrilled to call it the winner. Stacy’s bold typographic creation in retro colors is a modern and refreshing design choice. It offers holiday cards for you to customize with your family photo, gift tags and wrapping paper for your gift-giving needs and paper plates and napkins if you’re planning to be the hostess with the mostess this holiday season.

We talked with the Creator, Stacy, about how she was inspired to create the collection, what trends she sees coming up and what she loves most about the holidays.

Stacy hails from a small town in England, about halfway between Liverpool and Manchester, affording her both vibrant city amenities and peaceful open space right at her doorstep. Stacy was always interested in art, whether that be painting, drawing or other mediums. She completed her art degree in graphic design while also exploring geography, meteorology and even accounting. She landed a job working part-time at IKEA and, as she spent more time there, came to love interior design and the creative aspect of designing for a physical store. But she missed the artwork and creativity that her graphic design experience provided. She ultimately decided to leave her position at IKEA in favor of spending more time at home with her family, which also gave her the chance to get back to her artwork, and we’re so glad she did!

While Stacy admits that it took her some time to get back into the swing of designing, she eventually began to search online for opportunities for designing, ultimately deciding that Zazzle was the place for her. She especially loves the wide breadth of products offered, as well as the commitment and investment that is placed on the Cerator community. While she tried out other online designing platforms, she felt that Zazzle’s platform was the best fit and that it suited her design style the most. These days, Stacy designs almost exclusively for Zazzle.

Stacy has entered several of our previous design challenges. She has a great love for the holiday season and finds the process of designing holiday cards on Zazzle to be one of her favorite parts! She finds that although she enjoys designing for other products, she has enough inspiration and ideas for cards in her head to more than occupy her time.

Often finding inspiration from Instagram, Pinterest, clothing stores, museums and art galleries in her area, Stacy is never without an idea for what to create next. She loves the retro and vintage style of her collection and was inspired by the bold graphics, strong typographic fonts and bright colors she’s seen popping up this year. She began by doodling and before long, the “Vintage Retro Merry Christmas” collection was born. Being in the UK, Stacy feels that her design style usually sways more towards that locale, but she is also motivated to monitor the trends that are circling in the US too.

Curious how a great Creator like Stacy enjoys spending the holiday season? Most important, she says, is enjoying time with her family and friends. Whether it be at home watching Christmas movies in matching pajamas (a yearly tradition!) or hosting a holiday party with friends, she loves this time of year. One tradition she especially enjoys is decorating her multiple Christmas trees. From a red, Scandinavian-esque tree (a special nod to her time at IKEA) covered in hand-stitched accents that have been collected over the years to a more modern styled tree, it’s one of the most important pieces of the holiday season to Stacy.

In the future, Stacy hopes to explore different sides of her creativity, including photography and screenprinting. While she enjoys working in Illustrator on her creations, she is excited about the possibility of getting out from behind the computer screen.

Stacy’s collection is a beautiful combination of traditional colors, modern typography and includes a wide variety of products for all your holiday season needs. We are thrilled to have her as a Creator on Zazzle and want to again congratulate her on being chosen as the winner in this year’s HolidayZ Design Challenge!

Erika S

Erika focuses on email marketing, copywriting and merchandising at Zazzle, but she has a secret obsession with all things wedding! During the week you can find her writing punny subject lines while also pinning the latest wedding trends, and outside of the 9-5, she is usually cheering on the San Jose Sharks, reading a good murder mystery, or hunting for the best Philly Cheesesteak in the Bay Area.