Design - Envelopes

"During his 30-year career as a children's book publisher, Klaus Flugge received almost 100 beautifully illustrated envelopes by artists including Posy Simmonds, Tony Ross and Axel Scheffler. Here he introduces some of his favourites"

Source: The Guardian 
And many more Illustrators Envelopes at: The Apple and the Egg

Wedding invitation card - Paper Record Player

Well, this is an unusual wedding invitation card...

"This is a wedding invitation for my friends Karen and Mike. We created a paper record player to house + play a flexi disc pressed with their original song, inviting guests to the wedding."

Paper Record Player from kellianderson on Vimeo.

Cool Cards - Cool Radio - FIP

Here at Cool Cards we're often asked, "What music do you listen to while you work?"

Well, we listen to cool music from FIP. 

And you can listen too.

FIP (originally France Inter Paris) is a French radio station founded in 1971.

"FIP's programming is an eclectic mix of musical genres: chanson, rock, world music, classical music, film music, jazz and more, but connected with a theme. FIP is one of the few stations with this type of programming in the world." (wiki)

FIP website

FIP music player

We have a great website here at Cool Cards, but if we had a highstreet presence, we'd play this station to our customers all day long... we love it.

How much does a first class stamp cost?

BBC Link. Members of the public talk to the BBC about how much they think one first class stamp costs.

Have a guess? The gentleman on the left suggests "£4?"

"From Monday 4 April, the price of a first class stamp for standard items is rising 5p to 46p. The cost of a second class stamp is rising 4p to 36p.

It is the largest increase since first-class postage began in 1968. But Royal Mail says "UK stamp prices for standard letters weighing up to 100g will continue to be amongst the lowest in Europe".

The price of First and  Second class stamps for standard items weighing up to 100g will rise by 5p to  46p and 4p to 36p respectively.

The cost of a Large Letter  stamp will rise by 9p to 75p for First Class items and 7p to 58p for Second  Class mail.

Cool Cards have again held the cost of postage. We have not passed on the Royal Mail increase to our customers.

Cool Cards in Daily Candy

Seriously, how cool are our cards..?

We got a mention in Daily Candy for our hugely popular Uncooked Cards

We love Uncooked Cards. 

This our favourite:

it's your birthday
and quite honestly,
you've never looked
better. well, obviously
you looked better
a few years ago but
what can you do.

    And this our favourite...

it's so obvious
everyone wants
to be me. not
because i'm so
breathtaking
but because i
have you. and
you're perfect.

We could go on... So many favourites..!

Source: Daily Candy

Cool Cards: Uncooked Cards

Design: Old Photos

We love old photos. Especially weird old photos...

Source: Buzzfeed - 50 Unexplainable Black & White Photos

And: Black & WTF

More beautiful photos: M.I.L.K  Greeting Cards

Design: Iain Macarthur

British Artist and Illustrator Iain Macarthur done some nice stuff:

"few months ago i had a solo exhibition in LA at the phonebooth gallery inwhich i showcased pieces that i done based around animals. i used techniques such as geometrical patterns and also nature elements to create the faces and the bodys of the chosen animals i found interesting.
here are a few of the images that i done.

Also i done a few shirt designs for the past few weeks for bands aswells."

Iain Macarthur

Iain Macarthur on the Behance network

Also on the Behance network, a good friend of Cool Cards, talented web designer: Belinda van Arkel - Belindada

The official Cyanide & Happiness iPhone app

Wiki describes C&H as "dark, cynical, often offensive, and exceedingly irreverent."

"Cyanide & Happiness (As seen on the internet!) has finally made it's way to your iPhone/iTouch/iPad/other iThing! Comics, shorts, really exciting news, it's all right at your fingertips! Plus some other things!

          Features include:

• Comic Archive: Get access to all ~1,800 C&H comics in an easy-navigable archive. Get new comics the second they're available, or somehow bend the rules of space and time and get them even earlier!
• Shake for random!
• Portrait/Landscape viewing.
• Favorites: Save your favorite comics for quick (and offline!) viewing later. Impress your friends! Impress your enemies! Impress otherwise apathetic people! It's really versatile!
• Animated Shorts: Watch streaming C&H animated shorts from the comfort of anywhere.
• News: Read all about upcoming events, books, announcements, the works!
• Seizure Mode: Shake!"

C&H - Religious Xtremists card

C&H - Anal sex card

"Women do: piercings, tatoos, 
face lifts, cesarean birth, 
liposuction, plucking of facial 
hair and eyebrows, and 
depilation with hot wax...

So how dare they tell you 
"it hurts" when you ask 
for some anal sex?!"

Source: Cyanide and Happiness

Wiki: Cyanide and Happiness

Cool Cards: Cyanide and Happiness Cards

 

Design: Abstruse Goose - Tree of Life

The evolution of the BLT:

Tree of Life

Source: Abstruse Goose

My Anti-Valentine

"Valentine's Day is like herpes: just when you think its gone for good, it rears its ugly head once more. No wonder some people prefer to call it VD.

Yes, it's that special time of year when chocolate manufacturers and greetings card companies encourage you to demonstrate the extent of your fondness in cold, hard, cash (or the satin-covered equivalent) on February 14th.

Fuck that.

This year, celebrate or commiserate by sending an anti-valentine. Stick two fingers (or one, if you're that way culturally inclined) at any organisation with a vested interest which prescribes how and when to show your feelings. This year, don't say it with flowers: say it with bile."

Source: Meish

"What’s all this about, then?
The idea of the site is to provide an alternative card-sending service for all the people who think Valentine’s Day is sickly-sweet, exclusively coupley, consumerist nonsense or otherwise a bit naff.

Who’s behind this site? How long has this been going? How did you come up with the idea?
The original VD cards were created by me (Meg Pickard) and David Pannett when we were both single and grumpy while sharing a flat in London and working in new media. We created a bunch of cynical cards poking fun at the cutesy commercialism of the day, to send to our friends, with slogans like “Destined to die alone and unloved in a room heavy with the tang of cat wee” and “Oh my god. Thirty and still single.” They were just downloads, really, but we had fun making them.

The next year, we did it again, only this time we added an automatic send function – a free thing, supported by ads. Not great, but about the limits of our technical knowledge at the time. We were surprised how popular they were – a couple of thousand sent!

In 2003, we redesigned and ran the site again, this time with an ad-free back end. Over a two week period, more than 30,000 cards were sent. In 2004 the total grew again, to nearly 100K. In 2005, the number of cards sent soared past the 200K mark before the server collapsed under the strain. And so the pattern continued: lots of traffic, lots of technology fail.

Every year saw a substantial revamp of both cards and back-end functionality in an effort to keep on top of demand. 

In 2009, I decided that sending things by email was
a) too much hassle (in terms of being exploited by spambots and the like, plus causing my lovely hosts at Pair to have palpitations once a year) and
b) like, sooooo 2005. Who uses email anymore for sending stuff around the internet? Quite.

So it was reborn in early February 2009 with a social webtools spin, so people can share the love (and spread VD) via facebook, twitter, digg or anything else."

Source: Meish

My Zombie Valentine

Be my Valintestine.

"Cruising my local Clinton Cards in the weeks before Valentine's Day I noticed a cavernous gap in the market. There are all sorts of slushy teddy bear and bunny rabbit cards available but I couldn't find any that feature reanimated corpses or internal organs being eaten.
As I was sure that there must be a huge market for this kind of card I immediately set about rectifying the situation through the medium of linocut.

I'm sure your loved ones would be delighted to receive an original living dead message of love this February 14th.
Enjoy – I'm off to go and see if anyone from Clinton's or Moonpig.com are interested!

PS. while you are free to download and use the images for personal use please don't go using my cards for commercial gain as that would make me very sad indeed."

Source: Quinky Art

My Valentine - since 1941

"The Valentine’s card which Doris Ward will lovingly place on her mantelpiece on Monday is a little faded and worn around the edges. Which is hardly surprising, since it is making its 70th annual appearance.

As a 17-year-old, Doris was presented with the card by her sweetheart Harry as she boarded a train to volunteer for war training on February 14, 1941.

The couple married the following year, going on to have two daughters, two granddaughters and four great-grandchildren.

And the romance still remains in their marriage – along with what must surely be Britain’s best-used Valentine’s card.

‘Harry has never bought me one since, because I have this one every year,’ said 87-year-old Mrs Ward at the couple’s home in Bristol. ‘I bring it out of the cupboard and put it on our mantelpiece every Valentine’s Day.

"Two hearts entwine this Valentine. True love makes it sincere"

‘Harry was in the cafe drinking a milkshake and he said hello,’ she said. ‘He asked me my name and we got talking and we really hit it off.

'He offered to walk me to the bus stop but when we got outside a bombing raid had started and there were flares going off everywhere around us, so we had to run to a nearby air-raid shelter. 

‘We sat together in there for hours whilst Bristol was being bombed and he even fell asleep on my shoulder.’ Harry was a Royal Marine stationed in Plymouth, while Doris volunteered for the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

Source: Daily Mail