Card types and their purposes

1A card says what words alone cannot

Cards mark the big moments of life in Rwanda: invitations to a wedding or an introduction ceremony (gusaba), congratulations after national exams, Christmas and Eid greetings, a thank-you card for a teacher, a quiet card of sympathy for a grieving family. A card is a small piece of design with a big job: it must carry the right message, in the right mood, to a particular person. Card making brings together everything in this course so far: drawing, lettering, colour, pattern and careful craft.

2Cards by purpose

The purpose decides everything else: the words, the pictures, the colours, the size and even the paper.

3Cards by form

• Flat card: no fold. Postcards, business cards, gift tags.
• Single-fold card: one fold down the middle; it opens like a book. Most greeting cards.
• Tent card: one fold across the top, so the card stands on a table like a roof. Name cards at a meeting or a wedding table.
• Gatefold: two side flaps close over a centre panel like the gates of a compound. Special invitations.
• Z-fold (accordion): folds in alternate directions, so the card opens in steps, one message after another.
• Pop-up card: a part stands up when the card is opened. You will make one in the last lesson of this unit.

4The four pages of a single-fold card

• Front (cover): the picture and a short greeting that sets the mood.
• Inside left: often left plain, or a small picture or verse.
• Inside right: the main message and the signature.
• Back: small and quiet: the maker's name or mark, for example "Designed by Umutoni, S2B".

5Standard sizes

Paper sizes in the A series halve each time: A4 (21 cm × 29.7 cm) cut in half gives A5 (14.8 cm × 21 cm), and A5 cut in half gives A6 (10.5 cm × 14.8 cm). So an A5 sheet folded in half makes an A6 card, and an A4 sheet folded in half makes an A5 card. A business card is about 8.5 cm × 5.5 cm, the size of a bank card, so it fits a wallet.

Worked example: matching form to purpose

Umutoni is asked for two cards.

• An invitation to her sister's graduation party. She chooses a single-fold A6 card. Front: "You are invited!" with a drawing of a graduation cap in the school colours. Inside right, every detail a guest needs: who is inviting, what the event is, when (day, date and time), where (place and directions), and reply to whom and by when.
• A sympathy card for a neighbour. She chooses a plain single-fold card in soft, muted colours with one simple leaf print on the front. Inside, a few handwritten words: "With deepest sympathy. We are thinking of you." No jokes, no glitter, no bright party colours.

Same maker, same size, completely different designs, because the purposes are different.

6Look closely

Compare two cards printed in the 1800s.

• The first is a Christmas card printed in 1877 by L. Prang & Co. of Boston, a firm that made printed greeting cards popular in the United States. It is a flat card: a spray of pansies on the left and a pale panel on the right where the greeting was written by hand. The same picture, without the panel, was also sold as an advertising card: one design, two purposes.
• The second is a trade card, an early kind of business card, for a firm of printers in London. Count the lettering styles: there are at least five, and every space is decorated. The printers wanted to show off their skill. Would this card work as a business card today, when people glance at a card for a second?

Practice