Article: The Life of a Card
The Life of a Card
We're lucky enough to have our greeting cards stocked in shops all over the world, but every single card starts somewhere - usually as a rough idea, a scribbled note or a half-finished conversation.
Have you ever wondered how a card goes from an initial spark of an idea to a finished product sitting on a shop shelf? A single card or a new collection takes months to develop, with countless stages along the way: from early concepts and caption ideas to colour palettes and print proofs before we finally see the finished cards out in the world.
Read on to discover how one unexpected email sparked an entirely new greeting card collection that's now sold all around the world.
Phase 1: The Idea
Back in August, an email landed in our inboxes from Rosie with an idea for a brand new card range. The concept? A collection of cards featuring deliberately incorrect song lyrics - playful, witty twists on some of music's most iconic hits. A range made by music lovers, for music lovers.
The whole office immediately loved the idea, and before long everyone was throwing out song titles, misheard lyrics, and potential captions. Th challenge was finding the perfect balance between lyrics that were instantly recognisable, funny enough to make people laugh, but also actually useable as greeting card captions.
Phase 2: The Inspo
From the start, we knew this range needed to feel bold and typographic, with a strong palette and a punchy, graphic style guaranteed to stand out on the shelf.
With the concept in mind, we began pulling together visual inspo from classic music posters and iconic album artwork. We were particularly drawn to artists like Bowie, Neil Young, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads and Elton John - not just for their music but for the graphic design that came with it.
Phase 3: The Design
We began developing the ideas further, working closely alongside our freelance graphic designer to pull the visuals of the range in the right direction. Early on, we narrowed down a selection of captions that felt perfect for greeting cards - punchy, funny and all instantly recognisable.
From there, the visual style began to take shape. We landed on a retro-inspired font paired with a striking dark background - which felt totally different to anything we've produced before. We developed the playful colour palette, eventually settling on the 6 colours seen below, along with 3 different background shades.
At this point, Rosie and our Production Manager Maeve began exploring special finish options. We were aware that a simple dark background with typography might feel a little flat once printed, so we decided to go with a debossed effect for the text. Debossing is a print technique that creates a sunken impression in the paper - like the opposite of embossing. It's a subtle but really effective printing method, which adds a tactile, 3D, premium feel.
Phase 4: The Printing
3 months after Rosie's initial concept email, she and Maeve headed to Windles, the printers where all of our cards are produced, to see the Twisted Lyrics range come to life in print for the very first time!
Visiting the press in person gave us a real sense of how much work goes into transforming a design from screen to finished card. We always love visiting Windles and watching the cards being printed on their huge sheets before being trimmed and folded - it was especially exciting to see how amazing the debossed effect looked!
At that point, seeing everything come together at Windles, we knew we had something really special on our hands.
Phase 5: The Finished Product
From concept to completion, the Twisted Lyrics range came together over several months - from Rosie's email in August, through to launching at our first trade show of the year in January.
We began with 14 designs in the range, featuring playful takes on iconic tracks from the likes of David Bowie, Oasis and ABBA.
The response to the range has been incredible. Four months on, we're already preparing to expand the collection even further with 5 new designs ready to launch in June, something that we're all really excited about.
What never changes is the feeling of seeing our cards out in the wild. Whether on shop shelves, in spinners, or shared by customers on social media, it's always so special to see something that started as an idea become part of someone else's space.
