Express Your Feelings with New Greeting Cards

A greeting card is an expression of your sentiments and feelings for a person. They are mainly used for some special occasions like a birthday or Christmas but they can also be used to express sorrow or thanks to another person. Greeting cards can be handmade or mass-produced. Today there are several companies that distribute these cards. Cards are usually sold with their matching envelop.

The two most popular companies that produce the largest number of cards are "Hallmark Cards" and "American Greetings". It is also interesting to know that in the "United Kingdom" approximately 1 billion sterling pounds are exhausted on cards every year.

John Beeder, who is the former president of the "greeting card association", says that greeting cards are an effective tool for communicating important feelings to those people, whom you care for.

The trend of sending cards was started by the Chinese, who started exchanging messages to wish others a New Year and by early Egyptians. Later in the early 1400s, in Europe, people used to exchange greeting cards that were handmade and made of paper. In 1400, Germans started printing New Year's cards on paper by woodcuts and by the mid-1400s handmade Valentine paper was exchanged in Europe.

Greeting cards became popular & an inexpensive way of expressing your feelings by 1850s as compared to cards being hand-delivered and handmade. In 1843, London, Sir Henry Cole appointed an artist named John Calcott Horsley to make a card so that the card could be distributed to his friends He then began a new trend of occasional cards like birthday cards, Christmas cards, etc. But, more and more production of cards started in the1860s by companies like "Marcus Ward & Co", "Goodall" and "Charles Bennett" and employed "Kate Greenaway" and "Walter Crane" as card designers.

In 1930 color lithography comes up and puts the greeting card industry forward. By the1940s and 1950s there were"Studio Cards" i.e. humorous cards became popular.

Greeting cards can be classified as:

Standard Card

A Standard Greeting Card is made of high-class paper e.g. card stock. Its shape is rectangular & slightly folded and a picture or an image on the face of the card and inside it is a message already printed to suit the occasion, with a blank space to add a personal message and is sold with a similar envelop. Some of these could also be decorated with some fancy material like ribbons, gold leaf, etc.

Photo Card

During the last few years, these cards have come into existence and will become more popular. It is further classified into two types and is mainly used for holiday greetings like Christmas.

Photo insert card:

In these type of card a hole is cut like a frame where you can paste your photo.

Printed photo card:

These types of cards are printed in a high-end digital press and you can combine your photo with some art and it will get printed. Now, this high-end digital press will be printed out of that onto the face of card.

Musical Card

A musical card is a 3d card that plays music or sound like a special music for a special occasion e.g. Happy Birthday... when the card is opened. Pictures on the cards can be in fine art or can be humorous or profane.

It is a creative area and is always changing and developing.