Greeting Cards

Hey guys! After a week from our group Colour Wheel project, we are to submit our final project which is greeting cards! Ms Fu briefed to us about this project which is to make 5 cards with envelopes in it, and a folder to insert all the cards in it. And also, we have to make our cards based on a specific theme and luckily we are free to choose any theme! But before that, we were briefed about the history of greeting cards and brainstorming it later to produce 30 different ideation.

Definition of greeting cards

Based of Wikipedia, greeting cards is an illustrated piece of card or high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment and the purpose of making a greeting card is to convey thanks or express feelings. 

History

The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year. Besides, the Egyptians covey their messages on papyrus scrolls and also, the Germans are known to have New Year's greetings from woodcuts.

Chinese  Cards

Egyptian Card

German Card

Types of Greeting Cards

1.Photo Greeting Cards: There are two types of photo greeting cards. 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. Both types are most popular for sending holiday greetings such as Christmas, Hanukkah& for baby showers.

2 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.

3.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 notepad style cards where pages stick to the back of the cards. 

4.Risqué Greeting Cards: Risqué greeting cards are cards contain adult-based humor and cartoons. The humor in these cards can sometimes be offensive too.

5.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.

6.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 and colours. 

After doing some research, I choose the Risquè type of cards and also chose 'Happy National Orgasm Day' as my theme that is held on 31st of July. The main reason I choose this odd day as my theme is because of my intention to spread knowledge, humours, and also awareness  about orgasm to my classmates. As a result, I come up with 5 different metaphoric sex toys cards including a dildo, vibrators and butt plug.  Few days later, I met Ms Fu and asked her opinions as a designer's point of view. Surprisingly, Ms Fu asked me to proceed with it and also mention to make it as metaphoric as possible because a straight up sex toys cards looks boring and sometimes, very offensive to the public especially the country that I live in.

Not long after, I cut out the cards using only black coloured cards as a base and started decorating it with different types of papers with texture, colours, decorations and many more! I make a mock up of the cards and was told by Ms Fu to make it look cleaner and neater as there are some scratches and its kinda dirty also, thanks to the glues.

I took off some of the coloured paper, paste it again and make it look more refine as well. Also, I tried out some cards mechanism that contain greetings, facts, or jokes about orgasm to paste the back of my cards. The mechanism was kinda hard for me because I had never done any of it before and thus, I took a great amount of time to make some  mock ups and trails. It was a trial and error along the journey of making these cards! I did several types of mechanism which is the ' waterfall', 'push and pull', '3D pizza' and many more. Moreover, i added several decorations like wiggly eyes, synthetic hairs and thumbtacks to make it look eerie and at the same time, to try make it as metaphoric as possible.

After making the cards, I also designed envelopes for each card and a folder to insert the cards in. I use red coloured butter paper as an envelope. It looks kinda simple as it is just a simple wrapping and yarns to tie it and for the folder, I designed a book and the cover of the book  looks like a vintage Playboy magazine with a lady sprinkling water at her butt. The reason I used that photo is because my love for the pin-up eras and also to throw in some Risquè parts in it. I pasted my cards on a blank black paper only to make it look simple yet mysterious. The reason I make it blank is to make a surprise when one opened the envelope, from my point of view!

My Cards!

 The Folder

 First page of the book

My cards with its envelope 

So I presented my card yesterday and it is really a sigh of relief as we some time to concentrate on our other projects. Throughout this project, I did learn a lot about typography, cleanliness and also coming out a strong concept and I really want to thank Ms Fu for giving me tips even though she's being sarcastic sometimes.. Hahah.