PETCO
How do you build a holiday campaign that stands out during the most competitive retail season of the year without sacrificing clarity or cohesion?
Petco's holiday season spans physical retail, packaging, digital promotions, and paid media. The challenge was not simply to go festive, but to create a system that could hold together across environments without losing brand clarity or energy.
Rather than rely on seasonal clichés, the direction focused on bold color blocking, declarative typography, and expressive pet photography. The goal was to balance joy with structure. The result was a flexible holiday world designed to perform at scale.
ROLE/RESPONSABILITIES:
Lead Designer
Campaign Style Guide
Packaging and Retail Displays
Digital Modules and Email
Promotional Advertising
Photography Art Direction
COLORS:
The palette rejected traditional holiday red and green in favor of a high-contrast system anchored in Petco's brand identity.
Teal and navy provided brand recognition. Vibrant red, pink, cyan, and gold created energy and hierarchy. The colors were designed to perform across scales. Bold enough for large-format retail, but clear enough for digital and packaging.
Contrast drove visibility. Saturation created impact. The system felt joyful without relying on seasonal clichés.
TYPOGRAPHY:
Petco's custom brand typeface, Petco Circular, served as the structural backbone of the campaign.
Oversized, declarative headlines ensured visibility in high-traffic retail environments, while disciplined hierarchy maintained clarity. Scale created impact. Consistency created cohesion.
The typographic system anchored the campaign. Color, photography, and format evolved across touchpoints without losing recognizability.
PACKAGING:
Modular packaging templates allowed internal teams to scale the system across product lines while maintaining visual consistency.
IN STORE:
The holiday system extended across in-store signage, endcaps, shelf talkers, and seasonal packaging. Large-format graphics translated the color system into physical space, while packaging maintained typographic hierarchy at smaller scales. Every touchpoint was designed to hold together without requiring custom execution.
Merry Makings shows how seasonal work can function as a scalable system. The work operated across national retail, digital platforms, and physical environments. It maintained energy without losing structure. It created joy without sacrificing clarity.
Seasonal campaigns are often treated as one-off executions. This one was built to scale. It proved that holiday creative direction can be both expressive and disciplined, flexible and cohesive. The system held.