At a party I attended recently, conversation turned to whether we liked Christmas cards. Only one person in a group of five declared: “I haven’t sent any for years”. (She sends e-cards now.) The rest of us agreed it was a pleasant ritual, an excuse to contact old friends – and, as card recipients, a source of attractive free Christmas decorations that come with meaning attached.
Britain has the most successful greetings card industry in the world. We spend more on them than we do on tea and coffee.
The first commercial Christmas card was produced in London in 1843. However, in 1841 a mini-enterprise involving a New Year card in Leith, near Edinburgh means Scotland may arguably have originated this multi-million pound industry. Thomas Sturrock, of Trinity, now an Edinburgh suburb, made a pen and ink drawing of a glowing-cheeked, chubby-faced boy. Leith printer and publisher Charles Drummond, his friend, reproduced the image on writing paper and displayed it in his shop, embellished with a seasonal greeting. It is unknown how many copies were made and sold.
It’s Drummond’s initiative that stands out in this story, but, as any card artist, designer or photographer will tell you, the industry would be nothing without the creative people behind it. Despite the rise of in-house designers, many card companies still use freelancers.
Just such an artist is Dale Simpson. A 37-year-old mother, she works from her rural home in St Madoes, Perthshire. A degree in Illustration led to work illustrating women’s and children’s fiction in magazines such as “Best”, “My Weekly” and D C Thomson’s “Animals and You”. After “going digital” for purely practical reasons – Photoshop meant no loose art materials for a curious toddler to mess up! – she ventured into book illustration and card design.
Creating for cards comes with specific demands and restrictions. Artists must consider how cards will look on display, putting enough of interest in the card’s top portion to attract a buyer’s attention. Size format dictates dimensions, and sometimes text has to be given centre stage. And artists must accept that flowers and cute characters – especially teddy bears – will always be in demand. Dale puts the latter’s popularity down to their non gender specific nature – they can be sent to anyone. Despite this versatility, however, she has never sent a teddy bear card herself…
These constraints apart, Dale has no regrets about her career. “My cards mainly consist of Christmas designs”, she said. “I love doing Christmas designs as it suits my use of colours and the media I use. Everyone loves Christmas, don’t they?!”
Dale now has clients in the USA and Portugal, thanks to the internet. Browsing on Dale’s website, I could well believe her Christmas range, with its Scandinavian or Germanic atmosphere of fairytale, appeals to Americans. Even a Holy Land scene has a distinctly wintry feel.
Although Dale says she always gets a buzz out of seeing her work in print, that “buzz” is by no means guaranteed. “Publishers don’t always send the artist printed samples, so I don’t see everything I’ve had produced by clients”. I was surprised to hear this, but was surprised even more by another of Dale’s revelations.
“General colour themes tend to run with household trends”, she said, explaining that increasingly, people like all the things they buy – including their greetings cards – to fit in with their décor. This means that, when certain colours are in fashion for housewares, the card industry will follow suit. The “homespun” New England Folk Style is currently in vogue across the board, and Dale’s work has begun to reflect this. At the moment this means she often uses a particular shade of grey-green.
Someone whose colour schemes are usually dictated by the weather, rather than by fashion, is Gordon Harrison, a photographer based in a small village in the North West Highlands. Situated by the shores of Gruinard Bay, Laide and its surroundings provide Gordon with all the inspiration he needs for his landscape photography. Although he does not purely photograph for the card market, a proportion of his work has this purpose.
“Deciding what is going to be popular is difficult, and one is often surprised”, Gordon explained, adding that experience enables him to identify “two prime types of cards”, equally popular with visitors and locals.
“Firstly, the moody landscape shot that has atmosphere – the kind of view that makes you wish you had been there to witness it. Often it’s lighting that can be dramatic, as in a sunset for example, or a scene of tranquillity.
“The other type of view is the typical picture postcard view of a village. Locals will buy it to send to friends because it has their home in it, or visitors when it shows where they are staying”.
Gordon (65), whose boyhood hobby was photography, only made it his main income since leaving the software field 15 years ago. After launching a picture framing business, he started framing his own work, then in 2003 began selling handmade greetings cards locally. Local woman Janet Hayball makes the actual cards, and the two of them split the profits. Last year Gordon sold his picture framing business to concentrate on photography full-time.
This sounds very stable, but Gordon cannot afford complacency. “For no apparent reason images that have been selling well can go ‘off the boil’ – before coming back on again. I get surprised as much by what catches on, as by what doesn’t.
“I was surprised by our consistently top selling card from Day One [illustrated]. I thought the image OK but not outstanding, but other people decided otherwise!”
Photographing lichens and mosses – which he describes as a “niche part of the market” – is a particular passion of Gordon’s. But is it one he can indulge, as a commercial greetings card photographer? “It’s worth doing – as I enjoy photographing them, I’d like to sell them”.
It’s rather refreshing to hear this. It seems there is room for both the “Forever Friends” teddies and close-ups of lichens in the greetings card world.
Dale Simpson’s website is dalesimpson.co.uk and Gordon Harrison’s is se7ens.com.
