Assignment 2: Thinking of you

Brief

Create a range of cards for sentiments or events that are worthy of a greeting card, but are currently not created for by card manufactures. The cards could be linked to other calendar events, obscure Saint days, Sporting colanders or any other happening that is worth celebration or commiserating. You may wish to explore some of life’s other landmarks that currently don’t feature in greeting cards, like getting your first grey hairs, being released from prison or any other personal landmark some might want to share.

Summary

Create a range of cards for sentiments or events that are worthy of a greeting card, but are currently not created for by card manufactures. Design and complete at least 3, you may include the envelope. Explore all ranges of cards from standard to pop-up. Develop ideas that are unexpected, obvious and fun!

Keywords

• Create cards
• Sentiments or events
• Not currently created
• Complete 3
• Explore all options
• Unexpected, obvious, fun

Communication Issues

The brief has not given any guide lines other then the card needs to be a card that currently is not created by card manufacturers. There is no specified target audience but in saying this the design idea I come up with would narrow down a target audience.

There is also no indication given as to what platform the cards will be available, will it be online? if so what website? will it be in store? if so what stores? these are all extremely important questions, the target audience and cards created will all depend on these aspects and is a issue the client would need to clear up however as I just have the brief to work with its issues that I would need to answer myself through research and planning.

The brief did not give a time frame and also did not specify when or in what county the cards would be launched this is also important as you do not want your cards getting lost in major annual events such as New year, Valentines day, Easter, Halloween, Thanks giving and Christmas.

Design Problems

There is no budget given this is difficult as card prices can change depending of they type of card it is (standard or pop up) and what size it is another issue as there are many different cards all varying in prices.

I have never designed a card before so I would need to explore all my design software options and choose which one I am most comfortable with using at this stage, the software chosen will also depend on what type of card I am creating.

There are a lot of unanswered design question such as type of paper, size of card, what fonts, colour use, what textures? The design would go much smoother if this was specified by the client so this brief requires a lot of planning and research done enable to get to the end product.

Primary Research

First I had a look at the online card stores, Moonpig is the most popular one that I seen advertise and I also had a look at two other online stores that appeared at the top of my search page The Greeting Card Company and Funky Pigeon, they all have a large selection of cards one for every life event and celebration that you would buy a card for, the only online store that had something that was different to the others was The Greeting Card Company and they have a Congratulatory card for someone who has just passed their driving test.

Then I though I would have a look on an in store website The Card Factory and I did not really find anything different, now that I am thinking of it how boring are the card options? I really do not understand why they have not thought of creating other cards for unique celebrations. The world is changing at a rapid pace, you would think the card industry would change with it (sorry mind wonder over) The Card Factory had a “funny” card section but none of the cards were related to any specific event.

A lot of the stores have the “create your own card” option but they do not seem to change or adapt their card list.

The main card themes are shown below:

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Web page references: https://www.moonpig.com/uk/ https://www.funkypigeon.com/ https://www.greetingscards.co.uk/ https://www.cardfactory.co.uk/

A bit of History

I always like to start my research with a bit of history on the topic this way I understand my topic a lot better and I am more comfortable with working with the topic, so lets begin shall we?

In the Beginning… As (almost) always it starts with the Chinese and the Egyptians whom used papyrus scrolls to send letters and to the Ancient Chinese who exchanged messages of good will at New Years. Since then many cultures have exchanged greetings cards in one form or another. Handmade greetings were being sold and exchanged across Europe, during the 1400’s. In Germany, greetings were made using woodcuts. This was a time consuming printing process, where the design was hand carved into a block of wood to then create a print on paper. In Italy, more delicate handmade cards were used, especially for Valentines, when intricate lace effect filigrees were applied to the cards. The techniques at the time made the cards expensive and cards were used predominantly by the elite. During this time the cards were used mainly for New Years and Valentines. The first known Valentines message dates back to 1415 and was from Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife, whilst he was kept captive in the Tower of London

A rise in popularity… The rise in popularity of the greetings card came through a variety of factors. Advances in printing and mechanisation meant that cards could be created far cheaper and with less effort than the intricate handmade cards” When the first postage stamp was produced in 1840, removing the need for hand delivery, the greetings card was set to gain mass popularity. In fact, only 3 years later in 1843, Sir Henry Cole decided to create the first commercial Christmas card. As a member of the higher society in Victorian England, Cole had a very long Christmas list, and found this grew longer by the year. So Cole set about creating a way to reduce the time and effort that went into writing to his extensive Christmas list. The card depicted three scenes; a family gathered celebrating Christmas, and the charitable acts of clothing the poor and of feeding the hungry. 1000 copies of the card were printed in black and white before being hand painted. Cole used all he needed and then sold the rest, making it the first commercially available Christmas card. However, the price of six pence each, did mean these were still a luxury item which the working class could not afford.

The Modern Greeting Card… Since the 1860’s companies have been mass producing greetings cards and with further technical developments in printing increasing the availability and lowering the price, they became readily available to all. The introduction of colour printing in the 1930’s and humorous cards (sometimes known as Studio cards) in the 1940’s and 50’s saw their popularity grow ever further. Today, greetings cards are used the world over for every conceivable occasion.

Reference: https://www.penheaven.co.uk/blog/history-greetings-cards/

Secondary Research

SO… the greeting card has been around for an extremely long time and it is definitely not a new thing, so why are they still so important? lets admit it! everyone loves to receive a card, either through the post or by hand. In this crazy instant world that we all live it is worth reflecting that the greeting card is still considered by most as the truly effective way of telling someone you really care, time is the most precious thing we have to give, so if we spend time choosing, writing and sending a card we are helping people feel valued and important.

The greeting card industry is worth billions and we are all still so obsessed with buying them for any and every occasion that is celebrated, BUT I think we can all agree that there isn’t a card for every occasion that is celebrated by the ‘new’ world and card company’s have definitely not kept up with the times…. come on people its 2019! get with the trends!!

I have not worked on a greetings card design before, it will be something I would need to play around with so that I get the hang of it before I start my final designs, I would also need to choose what software I will be most comfortable with at the moment that is Photoshop but I would like to explore the other software a bit more.

After I was satisfied with the research I did I put together a mind map to get my idea ball rolling and to ensure I knew my subject matter well enough to start the design process.

Card Sizes

After having a look at multiple websites I found that the most popular greeting card size is A7 (5×7 inches) and other sizes used are shown below.

It makes sense that A7 would be the most popular size as many people store sentimental cards in religious books that sit in their bed side table or they store it in shoe boxes, both are the perfect size to store a A7 card.

I don’t think I will stray too far away from the most popular size because if this is the size of card that most people enjoy buying or prefer buying it will ensure that the client gets the sales numbers they would be looking for, I will still explore the idea of a pop up card.

Paper

There are many different types of paper stock that can be used to print cards you get Gloss, Matte, Textured, Ultra White etc. It would be something

I would like to go Eco friendly with my paper selection as it is keeping up with the trend and it will draw attention to the card designed. I would get my cards printed by ‘A Local Printer’ as they have reasonable prices for Eco friendly cards, they also have the same selection of paper stock that a normal printing companies would offer BUT its all ECO FRIENDLY!! https://www.alocalprinter.co.uk/

Developing Ideas

For my brainstorm session I decided to have a look at holidays that we have forgotten about and no longer celebrate, then I had a look at events that happen throughout life that we do not celebrate.

Ideas that stood out to me

• Buy nothing day – (normally the day after thanksgiving)
• Lughnasadh day “trial marriage” – (marks the beginning of the harvest season)
• Earth day – Going Green (living a Eco friendly lifestyle for the day)
• ‘Birth’ Day – Do not look down there! (for moms who have just given birth)
• The last child leaving home – empty nest (for parents who now have the house to themselves)

I enjoyed looking up events that were celebrated ‘back in the day’ and exploring them some of them have been converted into other events but the original celebration idea is something I can work off of and tweak it to be more relevant.

Processing My Ideas

I have decided to focus on these two ideas, I think they can be quite unique and fun. I have also had a look to see if these are events that already have cards that have been created for them.

Idea 1: “Lughnasadh day” this was a celebration that marked the start of the harvest season, it is known as the “three faced God and trial marriages day” I am going to focus on the trial marriage idea as it could be a card that is given to a partner to show they are willing to commit but only for a year and one day, after that they can make their final decision, if they want to stay ‘married’ they can finalize it legally or if they decide to part there are no string attached or hard feelings.

Card Design Ideas: I could not find any existing cards for this particular event (obviously!) but I had a look at proposal cards and marriage cards and I have chosen a few designs that I would like to work into my idea.

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Idea 2: Happy ‘Birth’ Day – this card will be given to parents on their child birthday to celebrate that they have made it through another year of parenting the human they created! I will also include a co-parenting card for those parents who are separated and get along with co-parenting.

Card Design Ideas: There are not any specific Birth day cards for parents out on the market but these are close to the card I am looking at creating.

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Planning

After looking over my ideas and processing them I realised that I have a life in stages theme going, getting married (possibly) Having a baby and then the kids leaving home, I found that rather interesting as it must be things that are relevant to me it honestly was not planned that way.

I used Photoshop for all my cards as I am still getting use to the other software options and I just enjoy Photoshop a lot more. I did have to watch some tutorials on YouTube on how to covert writing to glitter writing and how to cut out a section of an image.

Idea 1: Trial Marriage

This is an idea that I played around with a lot and I came up with two card ideas, as shown below they are both extremely different after showing my husband the card with the gavel I changed my mind about it because he said it might be seen as the negative meaning of trial rather then the positive version so I changed the concept, it is now lets make an agreement rather then lets put us on trial.

Original Idea:

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New Idea:

Front of the card:

I stuck to the same background and font and I just changed the wording images, I started with deciding what backing looks best as my idea would be that the background will be gloss as well as the graphics and the font will be in glitter, so it looks like the writing doesn’t go well with the background but if it had to be glitter on gloss then it would be a nice contrast.

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I had a look at changing the wording to say “let us make an agreement” but it just does not sound right (I think) so I stuck to “Lets make an agreement” The wording and graphics looks unappealing in plain colours so I will keep the glitter effect.

The card will be self explanatory once the receiver reads what is on the inside, the card will have a informal contract that they both sign once the agreement for a trial marriage is made, this card is designed to be fun and exciting not to be made into something that is going to put pressure on couples.

Inside the card:

Below is the inside of the card, Page 1 has the front cover scene in reverse to imply that they are at the end of the road and now making the decision they are both in wetting attire so again its showing a possible ‘happy ending’ I kept the inside grey and white to make it look a little more serious, the heading ‘agreement’ is in golf glitter to ensure the fun and exciting side of this still shines through.

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Idea 2: Parenting Award

This idea is something that I have always done for myself and my husband, as young parents we have always celebrated the achievement of getting through another year of parenting so have decided to apply it to this assignment. I have changed the name of the card from ‘Happy Birth Day’ to ‘Parenting Award’ as it will be something that is easily understood by the public

Front of the card:

I have played around with the same concept but different graphics, I really wanted the card to pop out at the receiver and give the celebratory feeling.

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The wording was a challenge but I thought I would use the wording to lead the readers eyes from the top of the card to the bottom. I feel like the graphics slowly progressed as I was playing around with them, I used the glitter effect on the trophy and everything else is gloss. Image 1 was too plain for me so I thought I would make the trophy bigger and add the beer and wine glass but then I though it was an information overload but something was still missing, I then thought of a confetti bomb to enhance the celebration effect and added it to the back of the trophy.

Graphics

With this card I decided to use simple graphics I found on the internet and tweaked them to suit my idea for the card. I cut the bottles out from an original image and lightened their tone, the trophy base was changed to include a plaque and I added in the glitter effect. The graphics planning and editing is shown below.

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The Glitter Effect!

I was really excited when I found out how to add a glitter effect to my graphics, I wanted to add something that would stand out and make the graphic pop out and while I was doing my research I noticed glitter was a good way to help with my end objective.

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Inside the card:

I had a look at two different graphics to have in the card, one matched the theme on the front cover with the Champagne bottle and flutes and the other one has a bit more of a playful side, my husband and always high five so I thought I would keep the root if the idea constant.

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!!!TWIST ALERT!!!

Yes there is a twist alert and one really long explanation to it but I am going to give you the short version of the story… well I am going to try…

SO! none of the above ideas were my original ideas! basically I have done this assignment 3 times over (this is the third) I started with very touchy subjects as I was looking at what is trending in the world today and I wanted to highlight some of those topics BUT when I presented the ideas to my friends and family they did not have anything supportive to say about it, they only responded with “why don’t you try this rather” or “that’s cringe worthy” and after those comments I felt extremely discouraged and questioned my decision to go with what is trending.

But while chatting to my tutor I explained my dilemma to her and she asked a question which have me a ‘aha’ moment… she asked “are they your target audience?” I mean really!! I have no idea why I did not ask myself that question!…. but anyway no they are not my target audience for those cards so obviously it wouldn’t appeal to them!

So I decided to carry on with my original ideas and my second choice of ideas because I enjoyed working on all of them and it is a decent variety of ideas.

(Original Idea)

Developing Ideas

When I first read the brief the ‘lets take a risk’ side of my popped up and pushed me to be brave and take a risk! I enjoy keeping up with what is trending in the world and following life events that people are trying to normalize and changing peoples views about them.

Ideas that stood out to me

• Coming out as gay
• Getting your first period

Idea 1: Coming out as gay has been something that has already become normalized in society, yes it is still frowned upon by some people but it is something that has taken years to become acceptable and once governments and communities have accepted people it everyone has seen the light and let people love who they want no matter what gender. However because it is something that has kind of “happened over night” families are still struggling with family members coming out as gay, so the card I would like to create is something that is humorous and I would like to think it will break the ice and make that person feel more accepted by a straight family members. (hopefully that explains it)

Card Design ideas: There are a few cards available to order online, I was surprised to see that there are so many but I am glad to see that the greeting card industry has seen that there is a market for these type of cards.

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Idea 2: Getting your first period this is a major life event for girls because it is the day you become a WOMEN! your body is telling you that it is ready to carry children! it is also the start of many other things that us as women go through and we are forced to hide it because it is seen as dirty and disgusting by boys and men (I am not being sexist) Men have no idea what we experience at that time of month, the headaches, the mood swings, the pimples, the fatigue, the cravings, the bloating, the finding a place to change your tampon, pad or empty your cup! It is exhausting and yet its something we feel uncomfortable with sharing because it will be inappropriate to share out menstrual pain with society! I mean there are cultures that make to women go sit in a closed room when she starts her period and she is only allowed to come out when she is finished bleeding!

BUT It is defiantly something that society is slowly getting use to chatting about and hopefully some day it wont be embarrassing to get your first period but it would be celebrated and that is the reason I would like to design this card.

Card design ideas: Again there are some card options available online but not many. here are some examples

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Planning

After researching the themes online I realised that it is something that the card industry has picked up on and there are some cards available. I am still keen to go ahead with my ideas as I would like to design cards that are going to offer support, acceptance and encouragement it will also open the door to offer advice to the receiver of the card.

Idea 1: Coming out as Gay

My reasoning for designing this card has already been stated under my “ideas that stood out to me” section so I wont repeat it, all I will say is it is my first time exploring this topic so if it bring offence to anyone I apologies, feel free to drop a comment and give feedback!

Front of the card:

I started with a few ideas but I found them to be a bit dark and morbid, I definitely had a “what was I thinking” moment when I looked back at my designs! See below:

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After looking at my first designs again I decided to research my topic a bit more and I chose to lean towards the more humorous side of coming out as gay and being gay.

New Idea:

I kept the colour theme as those are the colour’s of the Gay PRIDE flag, but I chose lighten it up a bit with white OR black coloured font, different font styles and humor! I have not chosen what colour font to go for yet but I do like the contrast between the black font and white graphics, it makes the graphics stand out a bit more where as the white font with white graphics looks a bit plain, I might need to lighten the background to ensure the text is more visible.

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Inside the card:

For the inside of the card I wanted to step away from the humor and add some more “heart” into the card, I have also added in the LGBT foundation details, I am not sure if this is a good idea yet but from what I have seen it is an amazing page that has everything the receiver might need.

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Idea 2: Getting your first period

Front of the card:

These are ideas that I started with, my feedback on the first two cards was that they are too graphic so I came up with the blood drop and all the nick names that us women have for “that time of month” but I found I was repeating my ideas so I decided to take the graphics of all three cards and make one card.

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Graphics:

I decided to work on the kiss graphic, I removed the blood drops and added the glitter effect from the background of the large blood drop card to the kiss (because what girl doesn’t like glitter!)

Glitter effect:

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Droplet VS Confetti:

I kept the idea of something dropping from the kiss because i like the effect it has but instead of drops I will use confetti. I think the confetti gives a better effect to the graphic and doesn’t take too much away from it.

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The Background:

I am not too sure what background to use as yet, I might just go with stark white so that it allows everything else on the cover to POP!

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Inside the card:

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Final Cards

Trial Marriage

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Parenting Award

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Co-parenting Award

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Coming out as Gay

Your First Period!

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After thoughts:

I must say this assignment had me going back and forth, starting over, rethinking, doubting, being confident with my ideas and then just going for it! I have worked in the promotions industry so I know all about reaching my target audience with specific products and events but for some reason I did not apply this to this assignment and as a result I spent more time then I would of originally needed completing this assignment.

I feel a lot more confident in my work and I will certainly feel more confident going forward as I now have FOCUS ON THE TARGET AUDIENCE cemented into my brain! doing this will save me much for time in the future!

I enjoyed creating and thinking of ideas that will stand out and be unique in today’s society and also thinking of a rage of cards instead of just a sequence of cards.