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So Much More Than A Card | Personalised Cards from GettingPersonal.co.uk

28 July 2009

Isn't it awful that the typical greetings card contains about five words? Considering one of those words is 'love', one is probably 'you' and another is the name of the sender that doesn't leave much room for actual meaning?

However, if like me, you think that cards should be more than just a lifeless piece of cardboard; then you will be pleased to know that they can be so much more than some companies would have us believe!

Instead of getting your friends and family generic greeting cards from high street stores consider getting them personalised cards instead. They're easy to buy and send via the internet and personalised cards can convey real meaning, because you can add the person's age and their name or nickname to the front.

What's more, if you take the time to think of something thoughtful to write in personalised cards they can be cherished and treasured for years to come and remind someone of a certain, special time in their life.

Sending Love Letters
Love letters are dying out, these days. We're in touch all the time so there's no need to float any magic messages down streams in bottles or write poems. We can just text or email instead. However, when it comes to romance we still buy plenty of mass produced soul-less cards for Valentine's Day and our Anniversaries and more often than not those cards are impersonal.

By which of course, we mean they themselves, are generic, store-bought cards, not thoughtful personalised cards! There's no real excuse for that because personalised cards cost around the same price and they even include delivery if you want to have it sent to the recipient's address. Add to that the fact that a card which addresses your partner directly is more romantic than a card which doesn't and personalised cards are excellent!

The History of Personalised Cards Sending greetings cards to friends and family is an ancient custom and many historians believe that the tradition first began in China. The ancient Chinese would send each other special good will messages for the New Year celebrations and some people think that over time these evolved in to Western greetings cards; however, there are several other schools of thought on the matter!

For example, historians who specialise in the time of early Egypt claim that special messages were scribed on papyrus scrolls and that these were the first ever personalised cards. Because short letters and greeting cards could be seen as so similar it's hard to really see where the custom started, but by the 1400s many personalised cards were being made from paper by hand and being given to people for special occasions all over Europe.

There are still greetings cards recorded as far back as the year 1400. These were found to be given to recipients in Germany where the card-makers had used wooden stamps to print greetings on to handmade paper. Around 50 years later and the first Valentine's Cards began to emerge!

Then, thanks to the advent of mechanised printing presses in the 1850s greetings cards began to be more popular and accessible to the masses but along with that they also became mass produced and therefore less personal!

The First Christmas Cards
Did you know that the very first Christmas cards ever were printed in 1843? They were designed at the request of Henry Cole who wanted to make a card he could send to his friends over the festive period. Being a wealthy man, he hired an artist who was called John Calcott Horsely to design them and he started a trend which probably makes the card industry more money than any other time of the year!

The first ever Christmas card depicted a merry crowd drinking within an archway, with the poor being cared for within a framing arch on both sides and it featured the cheery words: "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year To You." By the 1860s greetings cards were a solid tradition and a flourishing seasonal industry was built around them and then by the 1930s funny greeting cards had become all the rage. The rest is of course, history!

Choosing Cards
To some extent it's probably fair to say that greetings cards have come full circle, they were very personal and engaging and direct when they were first popularised but because it's easy and cheap to mass produce them they soon became generic. The good news is that now you can get personalised cards for the same price as samey ones! So, you can send everyone great cards that really mean something to them with their name (and/or age) printed right on the front of the card where it belongs.



Related article: A Greeting That You'll Fancy Eating (Personalised Cards)
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