Since 2010 #NZSecretSanta has filled the hearts of thousands of New Zealanders with joy, Christmas cheer and a strong sense of community.
An annual side-project of New Zealand Post, a 'game' of Secret Santa is run through the Twitter platform. Twitter users sign-up to the Secret Santa game, and are assigned a fellow Twitter user to be 'Santa' for. Players drop hints via Twitter as to what kind of things they are into and their assigned Secret Santa sends them a gift to match.
New Zealand Post steps in as Santa's 'Elves', as the go-between players. All parcels get sent to New Zealand Post HQ where the elves sort all the parcels, and make sure they get to their destination safely and on time for Christmas.
The bespoke game site required a refresh from previous years. Larger font sizes and clear 'slices' of information helped make the game instructions more digestible, while a full suite of icons for the dashboard were created to compliment the overall look.
Looking to inject a sense of playfulness, illustrations of native New Zealand birds were used as a play on Twitter's own bird logo and were peppered frequently through the site as joyous wreath-like patterns and as frivolous decoration - amping up the festive vibe almost to the point of kiwiana-kitch.
“Results were heartwarming as 366 players signed up in the first hour of launch and 630 the first 3 hours. #nzsecretsanta was also trending over the results of the American elections and the newly elected president Donald Trump (which occurred the night before launch). ”
