This second assignment allows us to put skills learnt through looking at the design process and creative problem solving to use through the design of greetings cards.
Analyzing the brief:
Who: Target audience to be confirmed following research but at this stage, the general public and greetings card purchasers
What: At least 3 cards that are currently not catered for or manufactured widely
When: Monday 1st August; deadline for assignment 2
Where: Potentially greetings card/ gift shops, general news agents, supermarkets, general stores, online stores.
How/POA: Evaluate the brief, recognise key words, explore types of greeting card, establish information through research: other types or formats of card, who is more likely to buy and become target audience, establish the audience and cater for them; find a common theme, visualise and finalise ideas, complete a finished product with t he use of editing software.
Key Words:
Key words I took from the brief were ‘OBSCURE’, ‘SENTIMENTS’, ‘EVENTS’, ‘GREETINGS’, ‘COMMISERATING’, ‘CELEBRATING’, ‘LIFES OTHER LANDMARKS’, ‘PERSONAL’ and ‘SHARE’.
In particular, I picked up on ‘personal landmark someone might want to share’ as I feel this is mainly the idea behind a greeting card… Wanting to SHARE an emotion behind something; whether a positive or negative event. A greetings card shows unity and empathy in bringing people together to show that you care for someone.
From this, I was trying to think of obscure ideas that I’m not aeware of within the card industry:
- Something has been achieved. e.g. a qualification/training gained, a characteristic such as being hard working or patient with something, weightloss/gain or fitness, showing gratitude for something that has been done like hosting a great party or event
- New life event: celebrating or commiserating a divorce, getting through a mid life crisis or the menopause or teenage years, children leaving home and flocking the nest!
- Family additions: rather than the standard ‘its a boy or its a girl/congrats on the birth of your child’.. what about a new pet, car or plastic surgery? or even a lifetime wish such as going to a specific place on holiday or having a prolonged vacation… buying a holiday home,… cards for the other members of the family – what about the birth of a grandchild or a new baby niece/nephew,.. or adopting a child into the family
- Awareness: moving on from personal events and looking at days of enlightenment such as womens equality, human rights, aids awareness, dementia awareness etc… However I wasn’t as fond of this idea as I like the thought of a greetings card being personal between friends.
What is a greetings card?
greeting card
noun;a decorative card sent to convey good wishes.A greeting card is an illustrated piece of card or high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas or other holidays, they are also sent to convey thanks or express other feelings.
Standard Greeting Cards: A standard greeting card is printed on high-quality paper and is rectangular and folded, with a picture or decorative motif on the front. Inside is a pre-printed message appropriate for the occasion, along with a blank space for the sender to add a signature or handwritten message. A matching envelope is sold with the card.
Photo Greeting Cards: In recent years, photo greeting cards have gained widespread popularity and come in two main types. The first type are photo insert cards in which a hole has been cut in the centre. A photo slides in just like a frame. The second type are printed photo cards in which the photo is combined with artwork and printed, usually on a high-end digital press, directly onto the face of the card.
Personalised Greeting Cards: Websites using special personalisation technology, such as Moonpig, allow consumers to personalise a card which is then printed and sent directly to the recipient.
Reusable Greeting Cards: These are greeting cards for the budget conscious. There are two common formats for reusable cards. Firstly there are cards with slits in them positioned to hold pages. Secondly there are notepad style cards where pages stick to the back of the cards. The pages that have been used for reusable cards can be removed after being received and fresh pages can be used to reuse the cards.
Risqué Greeting Cards: Some companies offer risqué greeting cards, with adult-based humor and cartoons. The humor in these cards can sometimes be offensive to more conservative parts of the population.
Musical Greeting Cards: Recently greeting cards have been made that play music or sound when they are opened. They are commonly 3D handmade birthday cards which play traditional celebration songs such as Happy Birthday To You.
Electronic Greeting Cards: (also called E-cards) Greeting cards can also be sent electronically. Flash-based cards can be sent by email, and many sites such as Facebook enable users to send greetings. More recently, services have launched which enable users to send greetings to a mobile phone by text message or use mobile app for this purpose such cards are called Mobile E-cards or MCards. Many of these electronic services offer open or anonymous chat, to enable further discussion.
Pop-Up Cards: Pop-Up Cards are normally cards that, once opened, have a picture coming outward, giving the reader a surprise. Pictures and printed messages in greeting cards come in various styles, from fine art to humorous to profane. Non-specific cards, unrelated to any occasion, might feature a picture (or a pocket to paste in a personal photograph) but no pre-printed message.
Printable Greeting Cards Also known as Digital Greeting Cards, can be found online through shopping platforms such as Etsy or some blogs. Usually available in the form of a pdf document, the design for a card can be printed out at home or a local print shop. Printable Cards have allowed designers to make cards readily available to customers all over the world.
Statistics:
- The most popular Everyday card-sending occasion by far is Birthday, followed by a number of secondary occasions that include Sympathy, Thank You, Wedding, Thinking of You, Get Well, New Baby and Congratulations.
- Most people now acknowledge many more birthdays than ever before because of Facebook, but they aren’t necessarily sending fewer cards as a result.
- The tradition of giving greeting cards as a meaningful expression of personal affection for another person is still being deeply ingrained in today’s youth, and this tradition will likely continue as they become adults and become responsible for managing their own important relationships.
Latest Figures from the GCA Market Report 2015
This latest Market Report shows that the UK greeting card market continues to be a major British success story with a value of over £1.6 billion at retail.
The total value of single cards sold in the UK in 2014 stood at £1.39 billion with 878.8 million single cards being sold in this period. When compared with 2013, value is up 7.77%.
The overall value of Everyday card sales stood at £1.057 billion compared to £1.022 billion in 2013, an increase of £34.6m.
Figures from 2012 onwards show the UK market has emerged from recession and is experiencing a sustained growth in sales across all occasions.
This upward trend signals an optimistic future for greeting cards, which of course is great news for retailers, publishers, suppliers and investors in our industry.
- No other country has such a tradition of card sending or card display in the home – the sending and receiving of cards is an important part of our culture. 85% of all cards are bought by women!
Sources: “About Greeting Cards – General Facts” http://www.greetingcardassociation.org.uk/resources/for-publishers/the-market/facts-and-figures . Greeting Card Association. Accessed 24/7/16.
General Findings:
From this secondary research, in short: Women buy cards more often than males..
Is this because they are more empathetic than males as a rule of thumb? Maybe they are more likely to want to show support and understanding or share a moment with a friend than a male? Is there still that stigma with males that they need to be tough and a sturdy hand shake is more suitable compared to a hug and a box of tissues?
Reflecting on these ideas, I thought about the people around me… When it comes to christmas, birthday and general cards, it is always my mum who picks and buys these compared to dad… The only time dad buys a card is for mum’s birthday or valentines day. When i asked, his response was ‘your mum always does it anyway’.. maybe suggesting this is something more enjoyable to females than males? Does this fall under another stereotype that women enjoy shopping whilst males are lingering outside leaning against the wall? When talking to dad a bit more about it, I picked up on some generalised ideas, “once they’ve been displayed, they go in the bin… seems like a waste of money”.. but later “its nice to know that you’re being thought of” and “i suppose its a little more special being given a card or a gift.. rather than someone saying it in passing conversation”… my partner added “it shows you’ve gone to some effort”.
So with 85% of purchases being made by women, I know my target audience will be female probably above the ‘youth’ age of 16-25 and look beyond these years.
Looking back to the mindmap of occasions to establish a theme, the following are more relevant:
Purchase: New car, plastic surgery, holiday
Life event: Divorce, Menopause & Midlife crisis
General appreciation & working hard
I’d like to play on the ‘obscure’ idea involved with this brief and started to think about turning it around and looking at the opposite to what a greeting card may represent.. What about thinking about the negative emotions such as ‘sorry for your loss’ or ‘sad to hear you’re leaving’… But at the same time this felt rather morbid. How about using a negative emotion or event and turning it around to be a celebration? This had been something I had briefly touched on the mindmap when thinking about the life events such as divorce, menopause and midlife crisis; all relevant to my target audience.
Using humour could be key to switching up one of these themes such as to show support through a divorce between friends.
“Women in their late 20s had the highest divorce rate of all female age groups, with 16.8 females divorcing per thousand married women aged 25 to 29 in 2013. This continues the general pattern seen over the last 2 decades.”
Looking at statistics again, the rate of women getting divorced between the ages of 20 through to 40 was at a higher rate than the same age ranges for males and so this helps to enable me to slim down my target audience further and include the youth ages again; this also helps with a theme because menopause and midlife crisis may be a little too specific in regard to having a target audience.
Sentiment: Divorce/Break Up
When searching if there were any current divorce cards, there was a very small selection which allowed me to explore other ways of designing an appealing card:
(Only 11 cards found linked to ‘divorce’ on Not on the High Street website)
Searching pinterest for ‘divorce’ and ‘humour’:
Feeling a little empty on imagery to use for this sentiment at this rate, I started to think about the text instead. I wanted to stay away from the expected ‘happy divorce day’ type of cover and use the humour ideas you find with cards e.g. having the first bit of the joke on the front, and finishing it off with the rest of the line as the message inside.
For example – Cover: A divorce is not a failed marriage… (inside)… Getting out of it before you kill them is a success!
Or to put use the text as a base for a cover?
– You’re going to make some cats very happy some day (inside: happy divorce day)
– You live, you learn, you upgrade (inside: here’s to being single and ready to mingle)
– Divorce: the end of an error (saw this as an e-card and loved it!)
– It’s not him.. It’s just your awful taste in men (inside: happy divorce day)
– We didn’t like him anyway (inside: let’s celebrate being single!)
My favourite which I saw someone had shared on facebook yesterday (posted by a womes empowerment page): “What is a Queen without a King? Well, historically speaking; more powerful”
Card inspiration
A swipe file of cards that interest me
Sketching Formats & Compositions
Some of my sketchbook illustrations and testing out a flowy font to look a bit frantic yet fancy…
I decided to make uniform square cards with the same style illustrations and font to show that they are a range for the same sentiment each with a different tone:
- you’re going to make some cats very happy one day… for someone who hasn’t any intentions of moving on
- you live, you learn, you upgrade – go on girl get out there
- Whats a queen without a king…. – strong female who is better off without
- we didn’t like him anyway – friendship and support from your loved ones
As all themes and elements are pretty similar, colour will differentiate the four. I attempted some background colours in my sketchbook:
Currently don’t have access to a scanner at home so my phone leaves me with rubbish quality photos… but I can salvage them with some editing ^
With all the elements of my design at hand.. It was time to tackle editing again and I would aim to follow the compisitions sketched earlier, on a square format 160mm x 160 simple fold with a message within..
Ruth513718 