How I Created the Wildly Punny Animal Christmas Card Collection

Some illustrators begin with a sketch.

I began with a terrible pun.

In fact, I spent almost two years collecting animal-themed Christmas puns before I drew a single card.

Some were genuinely funny.

Some were painfully bad.

A few should probably never see the light of day.

Eventually, though, the best ideas became the Wildly Punny Christmas collection - a range of wildlife Christmas cards designed to make people laugh.

Why create funny wildlife Christmas cards?

I hope you agree that it's high time we started mixing things up a bit with our Christmas cards. Nobody wants a whole line of cards featuring robins on snowy postboxes. Not that there's anything wrong with robins on postboxes. I just think that one or two is plenty.

Wild Lines has always celebrated unusual wildlife, so it felt natural that our Christmas cards should do the same.

Instead of another robin on a snowy branch, why not a capybara?

Or a humpback whale?

Or a wonderfully cheerful quokka?

The aim was to create cards that would stand out on the mantelpiece and become part of the conversation.

The search for the perfect Christmas puns

Finding good puns turned out to be much harder than drawing the animals.

Every time I heard a Christmas song or festive phrase, I'd ask myself the same question:

"Could that work with an animal?"

Some ideas appeared immediately.

Others took months to arrive.

And quite a few deserved to stay in the notebook.

Some almost worked. Others absolutely didn't.

A different illustration style

The Wildly Punny collection also gave me the chance to experiment artistically.

Most Wild Lines illustrations begin with thousands of tiny pen lines and dots.

For these cards, I wanted something softer and more playful.

I painted each animal in watercolour before adding pen detail over the top, scanning the artwork and finishing each design digitally with colourful backgrounds and festive touches.

Why wildlife makes great Christmas humour

Animals have an incredible ability to make us smile.

A grumpy gorilla.

A suspicious capybara.

A wallaby in a Christmas jumper.

A carolling koala clinging to a Christmas tree...

Wildlife already has enormous personality. The puns simply give that personality somewhere to shine.

Thoughtfully made, as always

Like every Wild Lines greeting card, the Wildly Punny collection is produced with sustainability in mind.

The cards are printed on recycled board, paired with recycled envelopes and packaged without unnecessary plastic.

They're designed to be as kind to the planet as they are entertaining to the recipient.

My favourite Christmas card tip

Before you go, here's a confession.

Every Christmas I worry about accidentally sending someone the same card twice.

One wonderfully organised customer shared their solution with me:

Choose one design each year and send that card to everyone.

Pick a different design next Christmas.

Simple.

It might make us feel wildly uncomfortable, and I doubt I'll ever actually take my own advice, but we have several organised customers who do just that and it's hard to argue with their logic.

Explore the Wildly Punny collection

If you're looking for Christmas cards that are a little less traditional - and a lot more likely to raise a smile - the Wildly Punny collection is full of unusual animals, terrible puns and hand-drawn wildlife illustrations.

Whether you're sending a quokka, humpback whale, owl or koala, I hope they bring as much joy to your friends and family as they brought me while creating them.