Assignment 2 - Thinking of you

The Brief
Card design for an event not currently covered by card manufacturers
Cover and message inside
To fit available envelopes which can be part of the design
Possible pop ups or other card formats
Lateral thinking
Ideas unexpected, obvious and fun
At least 3 finished cards
Can be unrelated or work as a series

Primary Research
What is already catered for?

I looked online to see what was listed

Secondary Research
Who sends cards?
According to the Greetings Card Association http://www.greetingcardassociation.org.uk/info-resource/market-info/facts-and-figures 85% of cards are bought by women so I guess they're responsible for sending most of them even if someone else signs their name inside.

Interestingly one in six retailers stock cards. Predictably with the advent of electronic media cards sales have fallen slightly but 952million cards were sold in 2012 and the total market was worth a whopping £1.38bn

Who are my target audience?
Mintel the market research organisation says  “This is a market driven by bonding, showing affection and expressing feelings towards others." in a report produced in May 2013 Coincidentally they also have a lovely animation on their website which explains what they do http://www.mintel.com/about-mintel

Why do people send cards?
http://greeting-card-software-review.toptenreviews.com/10-unique-reasons-to-send-a-greeting-card.html has an interesting list of reasons to send a card for less obvious occasions. There is something quite deeply ingrained into the British psyche (and maybe across the world - I don't have enough information to comment) that draws us to send a physical card if we want to show really care about someone. Maybe this will change in future generations. In my research I even found a  website offering to send handwritten cards for you http://www.sendacard.co.uk/
I think, despite this, a card is seen to be personal, shows you care, and is likely to be seen very favourably by the recipient. It's celebration or consolation.

In this vein....

Ideas

First car
15 minutes of fame
First job
Won the race/competition
Empty nest
First garden

So, some sketchbook ideas,

 (The net is full of photos of hands holding seeds so I've rejected that as lacking originality)

First Car
I had a lot of ideas for first car so did some preparatory drawings

and whilst Googling for cars came across the work of sculpture Lorenzo Quinn who did a hand pushing a full sized car which was displayed in London, I'm sorry I missed it. His website is worth a look
http://www.lorenzoquinn.com/

Mood Board

I can't find a reference but I'm sure I remember an advert that featured birds made from origami money. I thought of an origami money car

This is difficult to produce in high quality as my scanner gets very upset even scanning a folded bit of money as it thinks I have forgery in mind (it's probably already passed my name to the fraud squad).

I think to work well this would need to be a complicated model.So I went back to the drawing

 This was from memory/imagination and I think it lacks life so I found a photo of one of my sons climbing on his father when he was small and adapted it

 I made up the older car owner with a bit of help from posing in the mirror

 I then redrew them in colour. I've been experimenting with a mixture of cheap, slightly worn out felt pens and water soluble coloured pencils which I then add water to. I'm not good with paint but I'm liking the effects of this and it makes me use brighter colours

 These when cropped give you a card with a front page;

 and an inside page;

 

Both have white backgrounds but the scans have come out differently.

 

It's rather traditional in design, I'm not sure it would excite it's recipients but I guess it will be sent by their Mothers and Aunties who may prefer a traditional design.

 

This is the first day of the rest of your life

 

 

 

This works for so many occasions good, and bad as a sort of encouragement. I was thinking of something involving a calendar, this is a piece of card folded and cut to look a bit like a ring bound calendar, maybe?

 Then I was doodling on the computer and made this

 which lead me to an idea of the days stretching away from you

 There are lots of versions of this which I won't bore you with then I realised it works better in portrait format

 I wanted to have words in the largest box (day)

 But none of the typefaces feel right. I'd like white words with a black outline to reflect the boxes.

 I tried a couple of handwritten ideas but they don't work with the perfectly straight lines of the image

 I could go for hand drawn boxes but I'm not sure how I do the gradated background. Then whilst trying further proper lettering I accidentally wrapped the text around the box which I think works best as it leaves space for the "rest of your life" to be happening in the white box

The words inside the card would say "of the rest of your life"

On my computer the background looks like smooth gradation but here and when I try to print it out the bands of colour show. It also looks a bit like something you would find on a church magazine.

First Garden

Mood board

 Some sketchbook ideas, I really like the little garden at the bottom.

 The lettering wasn't great but I tidied it on the computer, removed the grass and turned it on its side

 Maybe the garden should be bigger?

but I think I prefer it small, a bit more centred and slightly straighter. This is the sort of card I would be attracted to. I'm not entirely happy with the lettering, I like the position of it but maybe not the typeface.

Campaign

I'm not quite sure that this fits in to the Greetings cards category but I am currently involved with a campaign to save our local ice rink. This lead me to think that there are other occasions when it might be beneficial to have a card that could be sent to potential supporters of all sorts of campaigns.

Some sketchbook ideas

 I like the idea of cards that aren't just square or rectangular. This design has a simple flap cut from the back of the card before it is folded

Here are my mock ups from the first pencil sketch through a rough using felt tip to colour in then a more finished design with black acrylic inked silhouette

 The idea is that the sender can write their own campaign in the placard

I haven't spent as much time exploring ideas for this card, the idea came to me while walking my dog and I wanted to try it out. The figure and the placard could be bigger, maybe cropped so that only half the figure can be seen?

My printer is ageing and doesn't manage very high quality these days so I haven't made actual cards. I looked online at sites like Moonpig and Funky Pigeon but they don't seem to print pictures on the inside pages which rules out getting the First Car card produced. I will continue to investigate other printers.

Conclusion

I always struggle with Assignments more than with Exercises. I think it's the underlying pressure to produce really "good" work that stifles my ideas. I found it difficult to get started with the Assignment because I either had not enough or too many directions to go in. I would have liked to spend more time exploring folded cards and pop ups but I wasn't going to meet my assignment deadline if I did and I think it's an area I could spend the whole of the module exploring. The cards don't display a consistent style but I want to open out the way I work and try new things so the fact that the First Car and First Garden are similar is a bit of a failure....