2020

Target Holiday

Digital Designer, Mother NY

How might we give Target's holiday season a design language as special as the occasion itself?

The holidays are Target's moment. This campaign called for a system with enough warmth to feel celebratory and enough structure to be handed off and implemented at scale.

Design Team: Josiah Werning + Gonzalo Donoso

The Brief

Target's 2020 holiday campaign needed a design system flexible enough to travel across broadcast, digital, catalogue, and print — and simple enough to be handed off to and deployed consistently by Target's own internal teams. After a year of COVID, the season called for something shiny and optimistic. 

The Solution

The result reconciles holiday warmth with Target's existing bold, minimal design language. Two central devices — a custom glitter texture and a graphic page curl — give the system its seasonal character while remaining easy to apply across a wide range of executions.

Color Palette

The seasonal palette expands Target's signature red into a fuller holiday range: deep crimson, blush pink, forest green, bright green, and light mint. Each hue was chosen to feel festive without straying from Target's existing brand equity.

Glitter Texture

Custom glitter swatches were constructed from overlapping circles — a systems-thinking approach that produces a rich, scalable texture rooted in the brand's geometric vocabulary. Red and green variants extend across applications.

Red glitter swatch

Green glitter swatch

Typography

Target's custom Helvetica anchors the system, carrying the campaign's direct, confident messaging across every format.

Helvetica for Target (Bold)

Page Curl Component

The page curl evokes wrapping paper — adding a dimensional, tactile quality to an otherwise flat graphic system. Built on a bullseye-based grid, it pairs with the glitter texture to create a flexible component that can be applied consistently across formats without losing its character.

Grid construction

Stylized page curl

Modular glitter component

Catalogue spread bringing together the campaign's art direction and graphic language.

Bullseye animation

Broadcast

Animation guidelines extended the system into broadcast TV and digital media, giving Target's internal teams clear direction for motion across promotional and service spots.

Promotional spot

Informational spot