In March this year City of Melbourne sent a brief for the new Christmas decorations to two design agencies, and the successful agency was Hive Creative. The brief asked Hive to design a range of Christmas decoration concepts inspired by traditional Christmas carols in a number of city locations, as well as create a Christmas look and feel based on 1950s retro style.

The overall vision is to make the city’s Christmas decorations a destination in its own right, to complement the city’s signature events and external offerings. The designs also needed to meet the following criteria:

• They needed to have a day and night element and be authentic to the southern hemisphere i.e. no snow.
• They needed to be striking enough to encourage people around the city as part of an activation strategy.
• There needed to be appropriate City of Melbourne branding for recognition of the Council as the owners of the decorations.
• It was recommended that the decorations had a sustainable element, for example use recycled or sustainable materials and/or require low use of energy.

The result is in Melbourne’s CBD right now.