It's a week in to Holiday Break and most of us are stir crazy and sick with missing each other. We went to see Night Before last week and Willie Wonka in Smell-o-Vision this week -- next week it'll be Blade Runner -- finding ways to keep in touch over the break. Local SUPERGENIUS comrade Liz McCarty came up with a design twist on Secret Santa -- we anonymously signed up with a request for a Krampus present that had three qualities outlined by Liz:

FAVORITE DECEMBER THING CAN BE: -a tangible thing: eggnog, plaid -an imaginary thing: kittens wearing mittens -a feeling: snowy solitude, laziness

DESIGN DIRECTION CAN BE: -a principle of gestalt: figure-ground, common fate, proximity, etc -a particular illustrator tool/technique we learned this quarter: offset path, gradient, spiral tool, type on a path, etc -a specific product/genre of design: logo, infographic, typography, icon, poster, etc

THE RULES: -blitzkrieg design sprint! plz spend 2 hours max on this. -make your own request pretty open and manageable. -use our frenemy adobe illustrator in some capacity.

I threw my request for an Ice Princess (in the style of German Expressionism) into the ether and can't wait to see what appears and by whom!)

I was assigned Gabriel Herrin's Krampus wish: a Krampus poster... special thanks to a photo stolen from an Austrian Krampus parade and Google Translate for helping me to butcher the German language.

This ended up more of a greeting card for Gabriel and his wife, Lezel, and I didn't use Illustrator at all but I figure that's ok since I don't know Photoshop either, it was a learning experience anyway.

So grateful to have the privilege to attend school with these wizards of design.

Merry Krampus to you, too!

UPDATE! the ridiculously talented Kaitlyn Castellow has created my German Expressionist Ice Princess -- she's more than I could have imagined -- perfection!