It’s mid-October. You’re writing the brief for Christmas materials — stores need to look like Christmas from the first week of November. The print producer reads the brief and replies: “We can do it, but only if the artwork is ready by 24 October.” That’s ten days away. The artwork is half finished.
The Black Friday brief hasn’t gone out yet.
This isn’t an unusual scenario. This is standard October for a brand manager who assumed there was still time. There was — in August and September.
Christmas comes before Black Friday — not after
This is the assumption that regularly breaks plans: Black Friday and Christmas are not two consecutive campaigns. They are two overlapping campaigns — and the one most people plan as “the second one” must physically be in-store first.
In most UK, German and Dutch retail chains, Christmas decorations go up in the first week of November — immediately after Halloween. Black Friday is 27 November, two to three weeks after the store is already fully Christmas-dressed.
Black Friday and Christmas communication increasingly function side by side in retail. Depending on the chain, BF materials may appear before the full Christmas re-dressing or while it is already underway. In both cases, it is worth planning both projects in parallel.
Store calendar vs planning calendar
In the planner’s head: “Black Friday first, then Christmas.”
In the store: Christmas from the first week of November, Black Friday on 27 November.
A brief sent in the wrong order produces materials in the wrong order — and often misses both deadlines.
What each campaign involves
Two separate materials lists — because although the campaigns overlap in time, each has its own brief, its own artwork and its own delivery logistics.
| Christmas (from 1–7 November) | Black Friday (from ~17–21 November) |
|---|---|
| – Full window dressing change | – Window graphics with pricing communication |
| – Interior banners — Christmas messaging | – Promotional banners above aisles |
| – Zone decorations and thematic display | – Floor stickers — promotional zones |
| – Checkout materials — impulse purchases | – Checkout materials — price impulses |
| – “Last minute gifts” zone signage | – Temporary sale zone markings |
| – Seasonal packaging graphics | – Price talkers / shelf communication |
Black Friday materials do not replace Christmas dressing — they overlay it. They must be designed as a visual layer that works with the Christmas scheme. This means the Christmas artwork needs to exist before the BF artwork is created.
Timeline — the right order for briefs
Work backwards in the right order. Christmas goes in first — so the Christmas brief must go out first. Black Friday goes in two to three weeks later — but both fall into the same October production queue.
- 27 November Black Friday — pricing overlay in an already Christmas-dressed store
- 1–7 November Christmas in stores — full seasonal dressing
- ~17–21 November BF materials delivered
- 25–31 October Christmas materials delivered
- October production of both campaigns — the queue fills from the first week
- Last week of September artwork approval — last safe deadline
- September → NOW — Christmas brief, BF brief, entering the production queue
October is not a buffer — it’s a queue
In October, every retail chain places the same orders simultaneously. A brief submitted in October joins the peak queue with no buffer for file corrections and a real risk of the delivery date slipping by a few days — which at Christmas is the difference between “made it” and “didn’t”.
A brief sent in September enters the queue before the queue exists.
One producer, two briefs — why it matters for these campaigns
For BF and Christmas, the case for one supplier is stronger than usual. It’s not just about colour consistency across formats — although that matters too, because “Christmas red” needs to look identical across every location in the network.
It’s about understanding the dependency between campaigns. A producer handling both knows simultaneously: when the BF artwork must be ready to slot in after Christmas delivery; how to design the BF overlay so it doesn’t visually clash with the Christmas dressing; when the last possible file change is without risking the delivery date.
Two separate suppliers don’t have this information about each other. They’ll discover the scheduling conflict when one of the deliveries arrives too late.
Planning Black Friday or Christmas for your stores?
Send us a preliminary specification now — a list of formats, number of locations and target installation dates for both campaigns. We’ll prepare a quote and propose the right order for production.
Placing the production order requires finished artwork — so it’s best to prepare it and place the order already in September, before the October queue fills up.
[AI GENERATED – Concept visual generated using AI. It does not represent an actual Labo Print project.]