Greeting card designers are always on the lookout for ideas. They are always thinking about ideas when they are out with a camera or a sketchbook. Sometimes it’s hard not to think greeting card designs.
Andy Rouse is a well-known wildlife photographer. He gave a talk some years ago about photographing polar bears.
He explained that he got all the ‘money shots’ first. That’s the close up shots or shots that had the animal doing something interesting. You know the kind of thing – a bear cub standing on its mother. Or a bear just missing having a seal for breakfast.
Along with those photos he showed some that he had framed with the animal off to one side of the frame. In other words he has left lots of empty space.
That space was where the text would go. He explained that he always had a book cover or a magazine spread in mind. So he left room for the text that would be added in later.
It’s undoubtedly good advice. But planning like this can sometimes get in the way. There have been times I have not taken a shot because I didn’t think it would make a good image for a card. In the eagerness to frame the shot for a card, I’ve missed just taking a good photo.
The Handkerchief Tree
The ‘handkerchiefs’ of the handkerchief tree are bracts (modified leaves) that hang either side of the flowers. When they first come out, the flowers are dark and spherical. And within a couple of days the flowers open and turn white and are dotted with black. And the bracts turn yellow and flutter away.
What makes the bracts so noticeable is the white colour and that they are big. From a distance, the bracts hang down looking like delicate handkerchiefs in a line one after another along every branch of the tree.
Take this photo of the bracts of a handkerchief tree, for example.
You can see these bracts have the beginning of yellow stains on them. And in just a few days they will be gone. This year was the first year I have managed to catch them before they are gone.
From the perspective of greeting card designers there is no way this could be a good card. The background is distracting. But as a photo of the beautiful white bracts that give the tree its name, the background doesn’t matter. In fact, the background gives context.
Greeting Card Designers
Greeting Card Designers used to be in two categories. They were employees of the small handful of big companies that dominated the market. Or they were freelancers designing cards for those big companies.
That all changed with short run digital printing and tools like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Nowadays designers design for their own card businesses and some have done very well. It’s a risky business because the unit value of the items is small and the barriers to competition are low. You have to sell a lot of cards to make any money. On the upside, if the public like the products then the risk is small because the layout to bring cards to market is small.