LI-EL ADVENT

Once we understood the vision Kalina Carlson had for the project, our design process was divided into two parts. During the first phase, our team created graphic layouts for Carlson’s five advent devotionals, which follow the church’s traditional advent calendar — with weekly devotionals focused on hope, love, peace, and joy leading up to the final devotional intended for Christmas day. 

During the second phase of the project, we concentrated on researching and crafting a new name for the brand, designing a logo, and creating designs for the physical box and the custom artifacts inside it. We thought carefully during this stage about the user experience. How would the audience receive the brand’s name and visual identity? How would the design of the advent box influence the recipient’s month-long experience? We wanted to ensure that the final product would live up to Kalina Carlson’s vision, giving those in mourning valuable tools to make space for their grief during the holiday season.

After deciding on a name for the brand, we went through the steps of brainstorming, sketching, creating graphic elements, and narrowing our concepts to three versions of the new logo. We met with the client to decide on and refine the final logo, and then implemented the chosen design throughout the advent box’s materials.

The final product invites the recipient into an interactive experience, with devotionals and hands-on activities for each week of Advent. Each devotional includes a brief reflection and journal prompt, with two versions available depending on whether the recipient is mourning a parent or a loved one more generally. Our team chose to complement each devotional with visuals that highlight the idea of absence, while employing a gold-infused color scheme reminiscent of luxury.
The chosen brand name, LI•EL, brings together two images to create a deeper meaning. The first syllable, “li,” stands for the lilies which are said to have grown from the tears Mary shed at the foot of Jesus’ cross. The second part, “el,” stands for the phrase “the elephant in the room” — an empathetic reminder of grief’s heavy and ongoing presence.

The dot between the two syllables represents absence, while the walls formed by the two letter L’s create a space where the audience can place their grief and perhaps watch it take seed like Mary’s grief for her son.

The logo incorporates the LI•EL name along with a hand-drawn line element and an icon which can either be interpreted as a lily or as two elephants standing back to back. The line element’s spiral mirrors the twisting and often nonlinear process of grief. Finally, the logo’s typography and design reflect a sense of maturity and contemplation. After finalizing the icon, logo, and wordmark for LI•EL, our team also created a logo for the advent box’s sub-brand.

LI•EL advent boxes are now available for purchase online. The design process for this project encouraged our team to emphasize empathy as a key part of design, always keeping in mind the audience’s needs and experience.