Thanksgiving Print Design: How to Inspire Gratitude with Fonts, Color and Finish

Seasonal and holiday prints are a fantastic way to connect with just about any audience, whether they’re customers, clients, volunteers, or shareholders. In this article, we’ll take a look at the American Thanksgiving holiday in particular. Read on to learn how to hone your print designs, right down to the type of paper they’re printed on, to maximize their message and emotional appeal. 

Typography that Feels Thankful

The Thanksgiving holiday is strongly associated with warmth, family, history, and tradition. To help ensure your text resonates with these themes, you can opt for a classic serif font (ie Times New Roman, Grammond) or script font (fonts that mimics hand lettering and calligraphy). 

Serif fonts are more traditional and easy to read, making them ideal for functional, consumer-facing prints like catalogs and brochures. As for more personal materials, like thank yous and event invitations, script fonts are an excellent way to channel the inherent warmth and welcoming nature of handwritten messages.

Color Palettes that Evoke the Season

Everyone already does orange and brown for Thanksgiving. While there’s nothing wrong with using these colors as a base to work off of, if you step back and consider the look and feel of autumn, you’ll realize there’s a lot more going on - and a lot more hues to pull from.

Some more out-of-the-box Thanksgiving colors you could consider include:

• Dark and muted golds
• Olive and forest greens
• Wine red
• Deep burgundy
• Warm, dusty neutrals

To emphasize that Thanksgiving is a time of celebration, you can also incorporate metallic foils in yellow gold, bronze, copper, or any of the colors mentioned above. Or you could use spot gloss to draw attention to specific details, highlight specific shades, and heighten the contrast between design elements. Both techniques help create more dynamic, luxe-feeling prints that evoke excitement and celebration.

Texture and Finishing Techniques that Make an Impression

To emote the rustic, traditional feel strongly associated with Thanksgiving, look for ways to bring naturalistic textures into your print products. Uncoated paper, linen textures, and soft touch finishes all produce different effects that are generally more natural in both look and feel. While generally pleasing wherever they’re used, these textures and treatments are especially effective when paired with print products specifically associated with Thanksgiving decor, consumables, and entertaining, such as Thank You inserts, product packaging, and labels.

Minnesota-Inspired Print Design Elements

Finally, as a Minnesota-based commercial printer and packaging designer, we want to conclude with a few ideas for incorporating Minnesota’s specific history and aesthetics into your Thanksgiving prints. This is considered one of the most beautiful states in the nation during fall, and going generic wastes opportunities to evoke that beauty and build brand solidarity with a local audience.

Here are a few ideas for incorporating Minnesota fall flavor into your Thanksgiving print designs:

• Include Scandinavian folk art motifs, like Rosemaling designs, rendered in your Thanksgiving color palette.
• Lean into Northwoods imagery with autumn forests, pine trees, lakes, and iconic wildlife.
• Incorporate inspiration from Minnesota institutions of yesteryear, such as The Buzza Company’s iconic greeting card designs.
• Call out partnerships with Minnesota organizations, your company’s Minnesota origins, Minnesota supplier partnerships, etc. with a holiday message of thanks.

Do you need Thanksgiving prints made for your organization? Are you stumped about how to boost the impact of your holiday print designs? We’ve got the expertise to help, and all you need to do is reach out to Wallace Carlson today!