For almost as long as MR has been in existence, we have been designing a custom holiday card. As so much of the work we do from day to day reflects who we are as designers, it has felt natural to create something distinctive for our end-of-the-year wish to clients, vendors, consultants and friends. In our earliest days, we were giving traditional gifts to clients for the holidays, but at some point, along the way, we thought that rather than finding something different for everyone, we should give everyone the same thing and it should be something that really symbolizes who we are, and what we are thinking about at the end of each year. Since we were sending a card anyway, we thought it would be meaningful to turn that effort into a design challenge where we could collaborate to create something really unique. The card would be a gift itself. And as we recognized that so many communities, both near and far, were facing crises, we would back it with a donation to a charity that was important to us.
Come October each year, we send out a call for ideas to our staff, and a few weeks later, we meet with our graphics consultant, Gianesini Design, to further a concept. The best ideas for the year are voted on and sometimes implemented as is, sometimes used as inspiration or morphed into another idea. We might photograph an interesting object or collection that we then print on specialty paper or create a line drawing or emboss a pattern onto a rigid card. We have been told by many recipients that every December, they await the arrival of our card and often keep them year after year.
For several of these cards, we have incorporated the MR logo into our design. In 2014, we landed on a square shape that we covered in gray velvet and etched MR onto the surface through a devoré or burnout technique. The following year, we cast the logo in ice and hired a photographer to capture it standing upright on a mirror, against a white background, the result being the melting letters and their reflection. For 2021, we photographed a collection of vintage brooches spelling out the letters, again in our logo’s font.
When not using our MR logo as part of the design, we usually try to incorporate something that speaks to either architecture or decor, whether that be an architectural drawing or model, or a textile or finish. In 2009, we photographed a rare vintage glass Christmas tree that David had found at auction upstate. We saw the elegant object, which we shot against a black background, to be very much aligned with the MR aesthetic. In 2015 and 2017, we also chose décor-themed designs, the first a small white, rigid card with a hand-applied square of Palladium leaf by one of our oldest and dearest vendors, Fresco Decorative Arts. We thought of this as a way to share one of our favorite interior finishes with everyone to whom we send a holiday greeting. As each card was made by hand, each ended up being one-of-a kind. In 2017, to coincide with the launch of our monograph and the arrival of our gold plated, solid brass candlesticks that are part of a capsule collection sold at Maison Gerard, we created a natural, chipboard card with a line drawing of a cluster of the candlesticks with slim taper candles, debossed in gold foil. In 2018, 2019 and 2022 we chose more architecturally themed designs, though each was very different from the next. For the first, we printed a floorplan onto a linen covered card in a bright blue similar to the famous hue created by the French artist Yves Klein, evoking traditional “blue prints.” The year after, it was a solid white card with an embossed faux bois pattern and the greeting printed on a gold foil background. In 2022, we were well aware of the housing crisis and how many people, in New York City particularly, were impacted by it. This prompted us to make a donation to Coalition for the Homeless. In keeping with the theme of shelter, we hired a photographer to photograph a cast Murano glass house that belongs to David. From the photograph, we had poster-sized prints made that had an atmospheric tone, which we folded to enclose inside a mailing envelope along with a tracing paper overlay, on which we printed our greeting.
As with 2022, whenever selecting the charity, a look at the year behind us guides our decision. When in 2012, Hurricane Sandy devasted so much of the New York region, we donated to the Mayor’s Fund of NYC which would aid communities most affected. Similarly, in 2017, our chosen charity was the One America Appeal whose work focused on recovery efforts for those impacted by hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. Over the years we have also donated to Doctors Without Borders, Architecture for Humanity, Food Bank for NYC, and a local nonprofit that is dear to us, The Alpha Workshops.
Our most surprising card to date was our digital greeting sent in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. By October, when we would typically start planning for our card, we were eight months into working remotely, communicating with vendors solely via phone and email and meeting with clients virtually. At an officewide Zoom meeting, where each of us logged in from our desk at home, we presented ideas and quickly agreed that it might be time to revisit a group photograph which we hadn’t done since 2006. We were all in agreement that we missed working with one another face-to-face and we thought our clients, vendors and consultants might miss it as well. After an hour of brainstorming, the idea of a photograph morphed into making a video and within weeks, we had a solid plan for it. We hired our friend, photographer Francois Dischinger, with whom we’d worked for many years and who knows the MR aesthetic well. Francois would shoot clips of each of us individually and put together a short reel. But as pandemic life was still rather new for us, we needed to coordinate carefully, to keep our staff safe and feeling comfortable. So to adhere to the safety protocols that came with Covid, we would wear masks (that were black of course) and stagger the schedule so that no more than a few people were present on set at a time. Initially, we were going to film in the office, but it just so happened that we were doing work on a project located in the penthouse of a skyscraper in lower Manhattan and thought it might be the perfect setting—an empty, raw space, 60-stories in the air with sweeping views of New York City. The shoot went off without a hitch and ended up being a very memorable experience for each of us. At midnight on January 1, 2021, we emailed the digital greeting and posted the reel to Instagram, bringing us together in video, if not in person.
With the 2024 holiday season now in full swing, we are now in the final stages of this year’s card effort and will soon drop them in the mail. We hope, as we always do, that our message will be well received, and our gift be treasured.
