During the lockdown, the Greeting Card Association (GCA) has been doing its utmost to promote greeting card sending to the general public through leveraging its contacts in the media and other groups.
“While accepting that safeguarding the health of our nation has to remain a top priority, it has also become increasingly clear that our mental health, as well as physical health, is important during these challenging times. Sending cards can really help in making people feel connected and cared for,” says the GCA’s ceo Amanda Fergusson.
As part of this, joyful new livery has been created, by Paper Salad, which gives a fresh new look to Thinking of You Week (ToYW). It includes the GCA’s tagline ‘#Send a card, deliver a smile’.
While the actual week does not fall until 21-27 September, a version of the new ToYW branding is also available, without the date on, so that it can be adapted for use from now onwards.
Explaining the inspiration of the new look, Karen Wilson and Claire Williams, co-founders of Paper Salad told GiftsandHome.net: “We wanted the new Thinking of You artwork to be fun, generic and reflect all the ‘diversity’ in the world. When we started designing it, back in January, we knew that something graphic could work well.”
In a case of perfect timing, the branding includes a rainbow element which has been adopted as the symbol of hope to help stem the spread of the coronavirus.
“Rainbows have been very popular in recent years,” pointed out Karen and Claire. “They spread happy, positive vibes, that the world needs more than ever today! You could say that it was a fluke – or sub-conscious designers’ instinct – that it turned into the perfect logo for the GCA Thinking of You Week! Its launch coincided perfectly with thousands of children painting rainbows and placing them in windows. We feel really pleased that it has already had such a great reaction. Let’s hope that this year’s ToYW will be the best one yet!”
Work is also underway on developing a consumer-facing landing page for Thinking of You Week.
“As part of this, I’m gathering together lots of great uplifting stories of how greeting cards continue to spread cheer in these turbulent times,” said Amanda. “Anyone who would like to share their stories, please do get in touch”.
Email Amanda on amanda@gca.cards
Top: The Thinking of You Week 2020 branding is a rainbow fest!
