Greetings Card Research

Greetings cards play a huge role in the consumer market, and due to the popular reliance on illustration in the development of cards, they also play a large role in the market of illustration and design.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/26/article-2238572-1637B567000005DC-814_634x416.jpg < image reference at this link.

There are many places where a consumer can go to purchase cards.
Such places include physical stores like Clintons, WHSmith, The Post Office, Paperchase, Wilko, as well as supermarkets both big and small.

There are also quite a number of vendors online, who deal in personalised cards. Ordering custom made cards from online vendors is also a very popular choice for consumers who want to make their card unique, and special.

Card assortment from Wilko's

http://www.clintoncards.co.uk/cards < image reference at this link.

Example of a small seasonal card.

Cards feature a wealth of different holidays, events and celebrations. Some of these include birthdays, Easter, Christmas, Halloween, and even as a simple thank you.
With the introduction of such services as 'Moonpig' and 'Funky Pigeon', the market has opened up to accommodate almost any event imaginable.
Below is a photo of the 'moonpig' site.

http://www.moonpig.com/uk/ < image reference at this link.

After doing some research into how big the market of cards is in the uk, I came across the following information, taken from a Royal Mail research group survey.
The link can be found below.

http://www.royalmailgroup.com/royal-mail-research-reveals-christmas-cards-are-making-comeback

The findings were published 2 years ago, and show that in terms of the transfer of christmas cards, the market is showing signs of making a comeback, compare to recent years.

According to the findings, the average person sends cards to 19 recipients, which is up 27% on findings from the previous year. Also found in the survey, is that 80% of people would rather have a physical card, over an e-card.

----------------------------------

Below is an example of some of Kate's cards, as featured on her online shop.

http://www.katebush.com/shop/collectables/50-words-snow-christmas-cards < image referenced at this link.

There are a wide range of different sized cards that I can look into creating concepts for.

They can range from very small cards like this one.

http://image.dhgate.com/albu_315314404_00-1.0x0/new-cute-fashion-style-greeting-card-small.jpg

All the way to gigantic novelty cards, such as this.

http://www.subpixel.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/FBLCT_001.jpg


I think straight away I am going to rule out looking toward the development of a giant novelty style card, if a card is the route that I wish to go down.
I know for a fact this won't work with the theme of Kate Bush. She is a serious woman, and it would seem a little bit unprofessional to produce a large card with her name.

I bought a pack of cards consisting of multiple sizes and genres, and using the cards, I was able to see what size would be appropriate. This will give me accurate dimensions to work with.

After looking at a large number of different cards consisting of all sorts of shapes and sizes, I have found a few cards which may be good to work with.

From the large assortment of cards, I have picked 3 that I think will work well.



In the end I decided to choose a card size, based the one above.
I believe this to be a really good size, as it is not too big, and not too small, which has the most benefits to me, in my opinion.

I found a blank template card, which is the same size as the card that I chose.
With this, I measured the dimensions, and since it is blank, I am able to cleanly label elements of the card.

Thomas.