Toys for Tots — Jay Marie

overview

KARE 11 and the Twin Cities Marines have been teaming up for 50 years to bring children holiday joy. During most of December, KARE invites local businesses to the studio to share their toy drive successes — and get a little bit of face time with the community.

I was tasked with giving KARE’s most important community-facing brand a facelift. I wanted to offer a brand with imagination and atmosphere for both print and broadcast, with a heavy focus on accessibility. I was also asked to make sure the Marines brand was featured more prominently as much of the community reportedly forgot Toys for Tots was a thing the Marines do!

sizzle reel

A fast view of just about everything I designed and animated for the brand, including video wipes and a map!

print

A large part of the event relies on print, including a big check, posters for participating businesses, signage, and a big step and repeat.

Because budgets are so tight for local news stations, the step and repeat needed to be reusable over multiple years. My solution was to place the sponsor businesses into a cloud element which can be reprinted at a low cost as sponsors change.

Holidays in harmony & Parade of toys

For the last day of the donation drive, KARE’s community coordinator and marketing director saw a vision: a live-stream event to entice viewers to bring donations and promote the station’s streaming service. Our art director, a true musician at heart, helped reach out to some local artists to provide some tunes!

I created branding and elements for the two events under a tight timeline, ensuring everyone on the project felt some cheer instead of holiday stress.