New Year, Christmas, snow, dazzling lights, festive squares in cities, familiar melodies on TV and radio, themed decorations everywhere—from greeting cards to invitations, promotional campaigns, and of course, website designs. This is the perfect time to start thinking about how to decorate your graphic projects (not just web design). You’d think everything has already been said before, yet somehow the topic never gets old year after year.

We’ll mostly focus on topics related to website design , but we’ll also briefly touch on print design. Just a bit—because ideas, individual elements, styles, and layout techniques can be easily applied to websites, homepage designs, and more. The key is to create something that feels stylish and festive—without being tacky or over-the-top. Here are a few interesting thoughts on what to pay attention to, what to consider, and what’s best to use.

Plus, we’ll do a bit of “drawing” in Photoshop to create a holiday-themed image. It’s a simple one, but the idea and technique aren’t instantly obvious. Just a few steps—and the result is magical! Last year, we showed how to create a sweater knit pattern in Photoshop .

Go Metallic

No, we’re not talking about going out in a blaze of glory—quite the opposite. Nothing makes people smile and feel festive like a little shimmer, sparkle, glare, or glow. Don’t hesitate to add a metallic element or use special effects when appropriate.

Foil or glitter effects on fonts and shapes can be some of the most stunning and impressive design tricks in your toolkit. And they’re perfect for New Year’s projects. Add silver or gold leaf to fonts, layers, or elements. Even without tons of other festive phrases or labels, you can create a celebratory vibe just using this technique.

Here are some handy style packs: 70 Free Golden Photoshop Layer Styles , Gold and Silver Styles PS , Golden Text Style . Remember, you can always tweak pre-made styles—change the color, for instance. That’s what we did: swapped gold for silver using layer styles.

Metallic effects work best when used sparingly on small elements. The idea is to add just a touch of festiveness, a hint of shimmer—without drowning your whole composition in glitter. You can even skip metallic textures entirely and just change your regular font color to gold or silver.

New Year Isn’t for Everyone

The truth is, depending on your site’s audience, it might not always make sense to go full-on Christmas or New Year with your design. Sometimes it’s better to go with a more neutral winter theme—think snowy fun, cozy games, and seasonal vibes. Try winter scenes, appropriate colors, and festive visuals that suit a wide audience and can work for any event. Just pick a scene that matches the season and use clipart like snowballs, snowmen, rinks, pine trees, and more.

This is a great approach for websites, e-commerce stores (gifts, products in general). Designers won’t have to worry about offending anyone. You can keep the tone professional and still send holiday cards to business clients using light seasonal references. This non-religious design approach works well when you’re dealing with broad or unknown audiences. And yes—these designs can still look stunning. The examples below use only winter themes without highlighting specific holidays.

Stylized Fonts

Holiday projects give designers a rare chance to use and draw custom typography that they usually don’t get to try any other time of year. Consider areas where it’s actually acceptable to use playful letterforms or a handwritten, childlike style.

Tip: The New Year One font is a really fun example (and there are more great ones on that forum). Note: you don’t actually write your own text with it—you press A and get a pre-designed word, S for another, D for another, and so on. Then you can customize it—resize, recolor, add effects or layer styles.

You don’t need complicated text. Classic lines like “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” are familiar and instantly recognized year after year. But they give you a great excuse to try a more decorative, seasonal font—even if it’s a bit less readable.

Skip the Red and Green

Sure, red and green are closely tied to Christmas and New Year’s—but don’t feel pressured to use them if they don’t fit your brand palette or style.

Start with the color scheme. Cool tones —like purple, blue, and green—evoke wintry chill, snow, and frost. Add some metallics if you want to elevate the design.

Also, don’t think you need to build an entirely new color scheme each winter. Just blend your brand colors with festive tones . Play with hues and styles—but always make sure your design reflects your brand’s voice.

To wrap up, let’s look at a few examples that use festive or seasonal themes. Some are clearly New Year’s inspired; others just give off winter vibes: Ded Moroz for New Year , dochkisinochki (themed games, palettes, styling), korablik (backgrounds, layouts, sliders), and scenes from 1 , 2 , 3 , feelwelcometree , hoosierlotterymystery , New Year’s design .

Final Words

Even though the winter holiday season comes only once a year, it’s best to approach design in simple, subtle ways. Don’t throw everything in at once—metallics, sparklers, baubles, vector clipart, and photos. Sometimes sticking to one consistent style across your entire website is the best decision. You can always try something new next year.

A good holiday design stands out not by being loud, but by adding just a sprinkle of atmosphere—a delicate accent that sparks big emotions and associations. Look around: many sites don’t use flashy festive elements at all. Just snowflakes, snowdrifts, highlights, sparkles—and that’s enough. Our imagination does the rest, linking them to Christmas or New Year. Meanwhile, the site’s branding and long-established style stay fully intact.

In other words, no matter how you personally feel during the holidays, your website’s design should maintain visual consistency, color harmony, and stylistic balance. Holiday decor lives outside of trends.

Happy Holidays!