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December 4, 2004
Card means close shave for
Santa
By Lucy
Weber lweber@mcherald.com
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Special
to The Herald
| MADISON — Santa without a beard? Say it
isn't so, Shaver's Choice.
A Madison company recruited some Madison
Central High School advanced art students to design a Christmas card
promoting its shaving products and spreading some holiday
cheer.
The results, being mailed out now on 200 cards, are a
red-suited, white-bearded jolly old elf contemplating a handful of shaving
gel on the cover and an obvious after-Christmas Santa in more casual
attire at the mirror, razor in hand, with Mrs. Claus looking on
approvingly.
"Do you think Mrs. Claus wants those wiry whiskers on her all year
long?" joked Michael Van Velkinburgh, the company vice president of sales
and operations. "Besides, he's got all year to grow it
back."
Joking aside, Van Velkinburgh said he and company president
Brenda Thornton love Christmas and wanted a unique company card to send to
clients, distributors and vendors.
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Special
to The Herald
| "We love the season. We wanted to do
something fun with our cards and do something unique," he said.
To
come up with a unique design, Shaver's Choice sponsored a design contest,
inviting the students of MC art teacher Willie Shoulders to submit
entries, letting their imaginations run wild.
"We didn't want to
confine them. We told them: Christmas, shaving and Santa," Van Velkinburgh
said.
Company officials chose the top three designs. The cover with a cartoon
of a still hairy Santa was done by senior Jamie Nash.
Inside, the
shaving Santa, with elves and reindeer watching from a balcony, was drawn
by senior Sarah Bryan Lewis. The third artist, whose work wasn't featured
on the card but one the company wants to recognize, is senior Marlena
Sigman.
All three will receive a small scholarship from the company, Van
Velkinburgh said.
The card reads "Merry Christmas to all ... and to
all a great shave. May the blessings of Christmas be yours throughout the
coming year."
Lewis said the students were told to develop a design
"with a shaving theme." She said she was joking around when she decided to
have Santa start shaving his long, white beard off.
"Once I came up with the idea and had it all planned out, it probably
took me about an hour and a half to draw it out and then another hour and
a half to color it in," Lewis said.
"I'm really excited about it,"
she said. "I've never been published."
Nash said coming up with her Santa, drawn with colored pencils, took
some time in the fall when most folks weren't thinking about Christmas.
"It took a lot of thought. I tried many sketches. Then I decided to do
something really simple."
This card isn't Nash's first published
holiday work. Last year, as a student at St. Joseph Catholic School, her
design of carolers was chosen for the school's card.
Van
Velkinburgh said they expect to continue the card contest next year and
maybe go to a different school to find artists, he said.
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