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What’s in a Greeting Card?

By: Akala Mugawe


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Post cards have been round since the Egyptians made papyrus salutations ‘scrolls’ to one-another, and since the ancient Chinese began mailing published New Years notices and resolutions to their friends and family many centuries ago. These cards that were being sent hundreds of years ago would had featured little resemblance to our modern greetings card, with its protective plastic wrapper and its fitting envelope, but they were exactly the same in nature and intention. People wanted to send something to one another, to say Hello, Congratulations, I Love You, Happy Birthday, Sorry…. the list goes on.

By the the middle of the 15th century people in Europe were sending cards on paper for the 1st time, although in Germany numerous old style greetings cards were sent impressed on woodcuts rather than paper or card. Around this same time, Valentines cards were especially fashionable, and thus another custom was born that is still important to people today. By the 1800’s, massive industrial modifications made it much cheaper and easier to mass produce cards, and following the first Christmas card was produced in 1843 as a result of Sir Henry Cole commissioning John Calcott Horsley to paint an illustration that he could send by way of Christmas greetings to his friends and family, there was no holding the greetings card or the Christmas card back.

Corporate publishing houses began to produce cards, and empowered leading artists, often book illustrators, to design for them. Artists like Kate Greenaway and Walter Crane were key players in the greetings card market in the 1860’s and their Arts and Crafts influence is still being felt today. One hundred years later though, by the 1950s, the greetings card market had expanded and alongside illustrated picture cards, studio-cards were becoming increasingly popular. These studio-cards featured photographs or cartoons rather than more formal illustrative images, and often had humorous messages or witty captions inside and on the front. This is a trend that has lasted through to today, with captions on cards still very popular with the modern buyer.

As A Matter Of Fact, the greetings card market globally is now massive; with the average person living in the UK sending 55 cards a year. It is a diverse industry, and although there are large commercial firms operating in the sector, it is close to say that younger design companies still play a large part in offering the consumer a varied and interesting range of different cards, all paying respect to a whole range of previous greetings card genres.

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Fuff birthday greeting cards undoubtedly take inspiration from many of these diverse influences; their careful illustration with colour and shapes is striking, and the sense of proportion in their cards is distinct. Their beautiful bird forms and their precisely drawn landscapes definitely have a faint feeling of the Arts and Crafts era, which was when greetings cards in Britain really took off; and yet their print

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