Christmas card puts high-tech spin on holiday
greetings
Hagerman & Company’s annual electronic
Christmas card owes its creativity to an in-house source of holiday
cheer. Joy Voltenburg, multimedia consultant for Hagerman & Company,
creates the concept of the Christmas card, and makes sure it reaches
customers’ PCs in the weeks before the holiday.
The cards reflect the company’s technology focus, as they are completely
electronic, distributed via Email and displayed on the Web. The
tradition started in 2001, when Joy downloaded a free trial of
Macromedia Flash®. She learned the software and used it to create the
first card,
“Peace on Earth” in only four weeks. This year’s card was created
using Macromedia Flash® 8.
When coming up with the idea for the Hagerman Christmas card, Joy says
inspiration is rarely instant. She said this year’s concept proved
particularly tricky.
“I really felt like I hit a brick wall this year,” she said. “I was
sitting around on a Saturday morning, when the first verse, ‘Are there
Christmas trees in California?’ came to me. I was thinking about how
we’ve expanded in so many of our areas in 2006, and wondering how people
in different states celebrate Christmas.”
The result is this year’s card “Are There Christmas Trees in
California?” The card plays on the theme of the company’s recent
expansion. It displays animated images from states and cities where
Hagerman & Company offices are located. These include “The Nation’s
Christmas Tree,” in California’s Sequoia National Park, a guitarist
celebrating the holiday in Nashville, Tennessee, a jolly Santa Claus in
Indiana and the well-known skylines of cities like St. Louis and
Chicago.
One unique feature of Hagerman & Company’s Christmas card is the survey
that follows the card, polling visitor’s opinions of cards past and
present. One result of the first poll three years ago is that the
Hagerman & Company card now reads “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy
Holidays” or a similar, all-purpose greeting.
“It really caused a stir around here [the office],” Joy says. We’d
always used Happy Holidays, but were very surprised at the number of
customers who sent in feedback, suggesting we use ‘Merry Christmas’ as
our greeting instead. We’ve used ‘Merry Christmas’ since then, and have
gotten a lot of positive feedback.”
While the right graphics and greeting are important, it takes the
perfect piece of music to make things really special. Joy works with
John Boline, Service Manager for Hagerman & Company to select music to
fit the theme of the card. A radio deejay in a previous life, John makes
edits to the timing and the tempo of the song to fit the animation. This
year’s choice was “Silver Bells” from the album, “Celtic Christmas.”
“Sometimes, picking the right music is almost as hard as coming up with
the card,” she says. “I really strive to incorporate traditional
sentiments and values into each card.”
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