The Daily Dot is proud to present a new way to spread holiday cheer: GIF cards. Each business day leading up to Christmas, we’ll be presenting two or more fun and easy-to-share GIFs to get you and your loved ones in the spirit of the season. To see our entire catalog, visit us on Tumblr.
Despite technological advancements like flashing lights and voice-recording modules, most holiday cards sold around the world are just pieces of cardstock with a warm message and a drawing.
Last Christmas season, the Daily Dot’s card was exactly that—an illustration of our small staff by college student Ashley Hallenbeck, who was selling sketches on Reddit to help buy her mom a new stove.
This year we decided to go digital. We worked with eight premier GIF artists to create holiday GIF cards that will never fade or tear. The artists include Hoppip, Intothecontinuum, Mathew Lucas, William Reiss, Nick Kegeyan, Psykzz, and Jason “challenger” Reed, each putting their own unique style and humor into the original compositions.
It seems only fitting. After all, the GIF, or graphics interchange format, was dubbed America’s Word of the Year by the Oxford English Dictionary, capping off its 25th anniversary. The looping images became a sort of Internet language this year, with the rise of reaction GIFs, used by President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, in advertisements by Coca Cola, and a slew of Tumblr users who have turned GIFs into respected works of art.
At the forefront of the GIF renaissance has been Mr. GIF, the New York-based duo of artists Jimmy Repeat and Mark Portillo. With a subject-driven style that ranges from suave portraits to crude 8-bit animates, the college friends have some ridiculously high-profile GIF gigs, including works for Forbes, American Apparel, designer Mark Ecko, Vice magazine, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and chef Anthony Bourdain.
The two have been longtime Tumblr GIF tag editors, helping curate the best animations on the network. They’ve also mastered the art of topical animations, creating timely GIFs for catastrophes like Hurricane Sandy and Tumblr’s latest hacking debacle.
“I think the format is fulfilling what it was supposed to do,” Portillo told the Daily Dot in August. “Maybe the people who made it didn’t intend for it to do end up what it is now. Technology has gotten better compared to the ‘90s,when you had a GIF with only two or three frames. Now, you have more capability with it. You have bigger GIFs, a faster Internet.”
Without further ado, here are Mr. GIF’s exclusive holiday GIF cards. Spread the love.
All illustrations by Mr. GIF
