And the wonderfully rich irony: “…the world's largest independent design consultancy” that has clients from, high fashion to big banks, the bulk of which is designed to persuade people into consuming more of the earths finite resources than they need in an effort to create colorful landfill. Not to mention the blatant riding of the sustainability green-wash wave.

I didn’t notice that there was downloadable wrapping paper until I read the comments. That was the icing on this already rich piece of cake.

Also, the "xmas" bit just reminds me of Futurama, where Christmas has turned into the annual rampage of an angry Santa robot.

Your "redesign" or whatever you call it doesn't really address any of these things. The addition of various religious and commercial symbols before the ".mas" (is it an email or something) will only serve to alienate and piss people off, as well as defeating the whole idea of it being too commercial to start with. The boring colour scheme will turn off adults and children alike. Really, if we want grey and white we can just skip to January, seemingly the most depressing month of year after all the colour and sparkle or December.

Here's something to keep in mind for the future: Mid-winter celebrations are celebrations of life in the darkest, coldest time of the year. They have colour and sparkle because it makes us feel more alive in anotherwise dead, dreary time. If you eliminate the colour you eliminate some of the most positive psychological effects. Sure it's nice to have an occasional island of calm, but bleaching all the colour away is depressing.

This one fails, as probably most holiday "redesigns" will. These things are so ingrained in our culture that they will only change over the long term, or you know, if we get wiped off the earth. Cheers!

Lets start with your problems. First you have "Divisive". Well, yes, it's a religious holiday, and the nature of religions is to disagree with each other. To a certain extent it has become a secular holiday, largely because of commericalism and how people are gradually becoming less religious (example: my father's mother is very christian, my dad isn't but I grew up with Christmas because he did and he likes it). But it is still a holiday based on a very religious event, and will probably remain that way while the religion remains. You cannot get rid of this aspect by simply rebranding it.

Second, you have "Commercial". Well, yes, but lets remember that we live in a capitalist society. First and foremost everything is about money. It shapes our politics, social classes, and self-image. While everyone seems to agree that money is not the most important thing in the universe, they all act like it is (for very good reason too; it provides us the means for comfort which IS one of the most important things in the universe). The process of Christmas becoming an extravaganza of spending has been a long time in the making, and will probably exisit as long as the holiday does because it has become so integral to the holiday. Rebranding or redesigning it, whatever you wish to call it, cannot change that.

Lastly, "Ugly". Well, beauty (and ugly) is in the eye of the beholder. Obviously many people like the extravagant decoration of Decemeber. It turns what is a rather plain and dreary world into something lush and glittering, magical.

PS- I'd also like to say something about the "downloadable x.mas wrapping paper". What do you expect us to do with that? Really, what? Do you really expect us to print some out and staple a bunch of them together or something? The cost of ink alone would surpass a $3 roll of wrapping paper. Alright, sorry, that's all.

I'd also like to point out that your entire color scheme is white. Don't even say it, it's just white. How can you even try to get away with that? Why not bring it to life with some color, have you forgotten that the "brand" is aimed specifically at children? You seem to also just plain not understand CHRISTmas, while sloppily adding the symbols of entirely different religions in front of ".mas". Do you realize that that doesn't work? Christmas never tried to be for everybody, it's just not what it is. It's specifically for Christians, and it's a bizarre move trying to imply it's not. And the logos don't get better. The next three icons seem to be there just to fill space. As for the world logo, I'd just like to remind you it's not the late 90's anymore. The remainders however, are your lowest point. One of your 3 initial problems was that Christmas is too commercial. 4 slides later, your solution is to further dilute your logo with big name brand identities. Really? Did you actually try to solve any of the problems, much less read them? Apparently not, as the third one is Ugly. Ugly font, ugly presentation, ugly idea. I don't know about you, but I'm satisfied with the fact this was the first time I heard about Pentagram as well as the last.

Pentagram-
On top of you looking like total douche bags writing "x.mas", there are numerous problems with your concept. Is it cool if I tell you them? Alright.
First off, the typeface fails to retain any warmth or history that should be conveyed while promoting something like Christmas. Even your choice of wording has eradicated any sense of the good old days. Why not use the whole word? It's less confusing, and less cell phone company.

I love the x.mas retool.

Is the x.mas font set available?