LCBO Holiday Guide
Ontario’s trusted beverage retailer expressed through festive seasonal work celebrating shared moments.
Project Overview
For the past three years, we have partnered with the LCBO to concept and create its annual Holiday Gift Guide. Released during the organisation’s most important sales period of the year, the guide brings together hundreds of products within a highly visual publication designed to inspire gifting, discovery, and entertaining throughout the season.
Bringing that publication to life means thinking beyond the page. From the initial concept through pre-production, photography, editorial design, and print, we shape each edition as a complete visual story, creating the idea and working closely with a team of creative collaborators to carry it through to execution.
The Challenge
The Holiday Gift Guide needs to feel fresh and inspiring each year while working within the realities of a commercial publication. Hundreds of products, detailed pagination, availability, and seasonal deadlines all shape the production, but the creative idea still needs to come through clearly. The challenge is to establish a strong vision from the outset and carry it consistently through the many people, decisions, and details that bring the guide to life.
Our Approach
Our process is built around creating clarity early. By establishing the visual idea before production begins, we can give both the LCBO and our creative partners a strong foundation to work from while leaving room for collaboration throughout the shoot.
From Concept to Camera
Each edition begins with detailed mock-ups that establish the composition, product placement, pacing, and visual direction of the guide. Developed before the shoot, they allow us to see how individual scenes will work together and give the wider production team a clear understanding of what we are setting out to create.
Bringing the Idea to Life
We work alongside photographers, food stylists, set designers, and other creative partners to translate that direction on set. Our role is to maintain the larger vision while working collaboratively with each discipline, shaping the imagery as it comes together and allowing the strengths of the team to add to the original idea.
Behind the creative process is detailed coordination with the LCBO around products, SKUs, availability, and pagination, ensuring what we capture works seamlessly within the final publication.
Outcome
Each Holiday Gift Guide brings the original concept through photography, editorial design, and production into a publication distributed across Ontario during the LCBO’s busiest season.
Over three editions, the partnership has allowed us to continually evolve the creative direction while building a process that supports ambitious art direction at scale. The result is a guide that feels considered from first concept to final page, with every image working together as part of one cohesive holiday story.