Mock up

Here is the improved mock up for my Jungle themed card, this also now includes a front cover design. 

The textures that I have suggested using for this card are, 

• Fuzzy
• Fluffy
• Smooth
• Squishy

These textures will be on the monkey's belly, the giraffe's spots, the lions mane (inside and on front cover) and also on the zebra's stripes.

Pitch Feedback

After showing the class my work I am even more confident that this project is going well. I only received good feedback and have been told to continue on as normal. 
I have decided that it would be better to follow the path of farmyard, space and underwater rather than my originally thought out princess, pirate and teddy bear picnic. 
I have changed my mine about my themes as I feel the new ones will fit the style from the original card design better and they are much more uni sex, there is no need to do girl and boy cards separately as it limits the audience for each card. For this reason I am going to make sure my cards are all suitable for both sexes. 

Jungle Mock Up

Now that I have looked into texture and structure, I am taking my jungle themed image and turning it into a sample to show the class how my structure comes together to create a picture. 

Here is my jungle design that I have drawn up using Illustrator. 

From this I then made a smaller image to test my structure for my sample, I then printed this onto matt photo paper and covered it in sticky back plastic, I then cut out the sections I wanted to be textured such as the zebra's stripes and the belly on the monkey, I then stuck the filler material onto the base card and stuck my image over the top.  I am extremely pleased with how this has come out and it has really motivated me to create the other designs for the range of cards. 

Here are the two samples, one of which has had text added with my mirror material behind it to make it very shiny. 

Card Structure

The structure of these cards has been a large part of the design process, I have been looking at how touchy feely books are layered and bound to give me an idea of how I will need to structure mine.   

This is a structural sculpture of how my cards are going to be built up, here you can see that at the base of the card, is a thick piece of card which provides the stable shape and the durability needed to stop the cards bending or tearing. Above this is the texture layer, this is the section where all of my different textures and materials will be, above this there is the photo layer, this will hold my design, the sections that will be textured will be cut out of this layer so you can feel through but not reach the edge of the material underneath to prevent the card being pulled apart. The top and final layer in this build is the sticky back plastic, this gives my card a protective layer which also provides the wipeable surface, the sections that are textured will also be cut out from this layer so you can feel through past it. 

This structure gives my card the strength and finish it will need.

The next thing I experimented with is the way the spine of the card will work, what I have done is stick a slightly longer than the length of the card layer over the back of the card while it was folded, this gave me the chance to fold this around the depth of the card, effectively creating a spine like a book. this was then stuck down but not all the way to the edge so that when the card is opened the backing can move away from the card letting it open and close with ease. Here is my sample spine card.

Now that I am happy with the structure and spine of the cards I can continue to develop my designs. I have decided that to give myself the best possible area for my scene inside the cards I will make my cards 7in x 7in making them 7in x 14in when opened, this also keeps me in the large letter size which will keep the cost of postage down. This size is perfect for my cards as I do not want them to be too big for the child receiving them to play with. 

Textures

Te next step in my project is to have a look at some textures to give me an idea of which materials accompany words such as bumpy and fuzzy. Here is the moodboard I created using different words and materials. 

Postage

An important part of the card industry is posting. Here I have got a chart of postage sizes, prices and weights.

So here you can see here the depth of a standard letter is very small and will not be deep enough for the layers I will be using in my cards. For this reason I will need my cards to be a large letter which means that I can use up to 353mm x 250mm in width and height. This gives me more room for my designs than originally thought which is a bonus. 

Child safe

After looking at children's books that have the same style as the cards I am planning on designing, I have seen a few things that I will need to take into consideration to make sure the cards are suitable to give to young children I will also need to take a few fundamental rules of card design, these together have given we a list of must be's: 

• Durable- these cards will be given to children  meaning there is a high chance that they will be pulled, pushed and chewed. These cards will need to be able to stay together to prevent any harm to the child.
  
• Wipeable- These cards might end up will dribble, food or much worse on them, for this reason they will need to have a wipeable surface so that they can stay clean.
  
• No sharp or pointed corners- As these cards will go to children, they need to be safe and not cause any harm to the child if left unsupervised.
  
• No tearable or easily perishable materials- No materials that can be pulled off or apart should be used as they can become a choking hazard to the child.
  
• Writable- Being a card there needs to be a section to write in, there would be no point in sending it otherwise
  
• Light weight- This is to keep postage price down and also so that if dropped the child will not be hurt by the weight of the cards.
  
• Interesting- The point of the cards  is to stimulate the child, for this reason they need to have an interesting pattern and textures inside, the card also needs to appeal to the buyer so appearance is everything.