PSRC Annual Holiday Card Contest

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PSRC Annual Holiday Card Contest

• Open to All Students K-12

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History of Holiday Cards

• The first commercial Christmas cards were
  commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843
  and featured an illustration by John Callcott
  Horsley.
• The picture, of a family with a small child
  drinking wine together, proved controversial, but
  the idea was shrewd Cole had helped introduce
  the Penny Post three years earlier.
• Two batches totaling 2,050 cards were printed and
  sold that year for a shilling each.

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The world's first commercially produced Christmas
card, designed by John Callcott Horsley for Henry
Cole
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• In 1843 John Horsley was commissioned to create a
  Christmas card for Sir Henry Cole (the first
  director of the Victoria and Albert Museum)
  because he did not have the time to write all of
  his friends as he had done in previous years.
• The cards were created on lithographs and
  hand-colored. The first card was supposed to have
  depicted poor people being fed and clothed but
  instead Horsley created a family party in
  progress showing a child sipping wine. The
  original intent was to remind Sir Henrys friends
  of the great needs for the persons in poverty
  during this season. Instead it caused an uproar
  for fostering the moral corruption of children.
• It is said that Sir Henry did not send out any
  cards following that year but Christmas cards
  were already on their way. The first year 1000
  cards went on sale in London for one shilling
  each.

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Environmental impact and recycling

• During the first 70 years of the 19th century it
  was common for Christmas and other greeting cards
  to be recycled by women's service organizations
  who collected them and removed the pictures, to
  be pasted into scrap books for the entertainment
  of children in hospitals, orphanages,
  kindergartens and missions. With children's
  picture books becoming cheaper and more readily
  available, this form of scrap-booking has almost
  disappeared.

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Environmental Concerns

• Recent concern over the environmental impact of
  printing, mailing and delivering cards has fueled
  an increase in e-cards
• The U.K. conservation charity Woodland Trust runs
  an annual campaign to collect and recycle
  Christmas cards to raise awareness of recycling
  and collect donations from corporate sponsors and
  supporters.

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• All recycled cards help raise money to plant more
  trees. In the 12 years that the Woodland Trust
  Christmas Card Recycling Scheme has been running,
  more than 600 million cards have been recycled.
  This has enabled the Woodland Trust to plant more
  than 141,000 trees, save over 12,000 tonnes of
  paper from landfill and stop over 16,000 tonnes
  of CO2 from going into the atmosphere the
  equivalent to taking more than 5,000 cars off the
  road for a year

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• Early English cards rarely showed winter or
  religious themes, instead favoring flowers,
  fairies and other fanciful designs that reminded
  the recipient of the approach of spring. Humorous
  and sentimental images of children and animals
  were popular, as were increasingly elaborate
  shapes, decorations and materials.
• In 1875 Louis Prang became the first printer to
  offer cards in America, though the popularity of
  his cards led to cheap imitations that eventually
  drove him from the market.
• The advent of the postcard spelled the end for
  elaborate Victorian-style cards, but by the
  1920s, cards with envelopes had returned.

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• The production of Christmas cards was, throughout
  the 20th century, a profitable business for many
  stationery manufacturers, with the design of
  cards continually evolving with changing tastes
  and printing techniques.
• The World Wars brought cards with patriotic
  themes. Idiosyncratic "studio cards" with cartoon
  illustrations and sometimes risque humor caught
  on in the 1950s.
• Nostalgic, sentimental, and religious images have
  continued in popularity, and, in the 21st
  century, reproductions of Victorian and Edwardian
  cards are easy to obtain.
• Modern Christmas cards can be bought individually
  but are also sold in packs of the same or varied
  designs.
• In recent decades changes in technology may be
  responsible for the decline of the Christmas
  card.
• The estimated number of cards received by
  American households dropped from 29 in 1987 to 20
  in 2004.
• Email and telephones allow for more frequent
  contact and are easier for generations raised
  without handwritten letters - especially given
  the availability of websites offering free email
  Christmas cards. Despite the decline, 1.9 billion
  cards were sent in the U.S. in 2005 alone. Some
  card manufacturers, such as Hallmark, now provide
  E-cards.

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Official Christmas cards

• "Official" Christmas cards began with Queen
  Victoria in the 1840s.
• The British royal family's cards are generally
  portraits reflecting significant personal events
  of the year.
• In 1953, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
  issued the first official White House card.
• The cards usually depict White House scenes as
  rendered by prominent American artists.
• The number of recipients has snowballed over the
  decades, from just 2,000 in 1961 to 1.4 million
  in 2005.

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President Johnson's 1967 White House Christmas
card
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Commercial Christmas cards

• Many businesses, from small local businesses to
  multi-national enterprises send Christmas cards
  to the people on their customer lists, as a way
  to develop general goodwill, retain brand
  awareness and reinforce social networks. These
  cards are almost always discrete and secular in
  design, and do not attempt to sell a product,
  limiting themselves to mentioning the name of the
  business. The practice harkens back to trade
  cards of the 18th century, an ancestor of the
  modern Christmas card.

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Trade Christmas card promoting Royal typewriters
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Charity Christmas cards

• Many organizations produce special Christmas
  cards as a fundraising tool.
• The most famous of these enterprises is probably
  the UNICEF Christmas card program, launched in
  1949, which selects artwork from internationally
  known artists for card reproduction.
• The UK-based Charities Advisory Trust gives out
  an annual "Scrooge Award" to the cards that
  return the smallest percentage to the charities
  they claim to support

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The picture chosen was painted by a
seven-year-old girl, Jitka Samkova of Rudolfo, a
small town in the former Czechoslovakia. The town
received UNICEF assistance after World War II,
inspiring Jitka to paint children dancing around
a maypole, representing "joy going round and
round."
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Home-made cards

• Since the 19th century, many families and
  individuals have chosen to make their own
  Christmas cards, either in response to monetary
  necessity, as an artistic endeavour, or in order
  to avoid the commercialism associated with
  Christmas cards.
• With a higher preference of handmade gifts during
  the 19th century over purchased or commercial
  items, homemade cards carried high sentimental
  value as gifts alone.
• Many families make the creation of Christmas
  cards a family endeavour and part of the seasonal
  festivity, along with stirring the Christmas cake
  and decorating the tree.
• Over the years such cards have been produced in
  every type of paint and crayon, in collage and in
  simple printing techniques.
• A revival of interest in paper crafts,
  particularly scrapbooking, has raised the status
  of the homemade card and made available an array
  of tools for stamping, punching and cutting.

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Silk cord and tassels, circa 1860
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Advances in Technology

• Advances in digital photography and printing have
  provided the technology for many people to design
  and print their own cards, using their original
  graphic designs or photos, or those available
  with many computer programs or online as clip
  art, as well as a great range of typefaces. Such
  homemade cards include personal touches such as
  family photos and holidays snapshots.

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Christmas card made on a PC with a basic drawing
program.
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Collectors items

• From the beginning, Christmas cards have been
  avidly collected.
• Queen Mary amassed a large collection that is now
  housed in the British Museum.
• The University College of London's Slade School
  of Fine Art houses a collection of handmade
  Christmas Cards from alumni such as Paula Rego
  and Richard Hamilton and are displayed at events
  over the Christmas season, when members of the
  public can make their own Christmas cards in the
  Strang Print Room.9
• Specimens from the "golden age" of printing
  (1840s1890s) are especially prized and bring in
  large sums at auctions. In December 2005, one of
  Horsley's original cards sold for nearly 9,000.
• Collectors may focus on particular images like
  Santa Claus, poets, or printing techniques.
• The Christmas card that holds the world record as
  the most expensive ever sold was a card produced
  in 1843 by J. C. Horsley and commissioned by
  civil servant Sir Henry Cole. The card, one of
  the world's first, was sold in 2001 by UK
  auctioneers Henry Aldridge to an anonymous bidder
  for a record breaking 22,250.

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Sir Henry Cole designed by J.C. Horsley 1843
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Victorian, circa 1870
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Victorian, 1885
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Postcard, circa 1900
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American card, circa 1920
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War-related, circa 1943
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Rust Craft, circa 1950
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Designs Specifications for cover art

• Design completed on 9x12 paper (DO NOT FOLD into
  a card)
• Designs should be Non-Religious
• Design should include some type of greeting like
  Seasons Greetings Happy Holidays
• Pencil drawing should have a strong contrast of
  black/white/gray
• Use permanent color mediums-NO unfixed pastels
• Use Pencil, Marker, or colored pencil

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Tips

• Think about how Holiday looks
• If you would like to use an old card to be
  inspired by you may
• Design should be complex and extremely neat
• Students name, grade, school, art teacher name
  PRINTED on back
• No charcoal, glitter, oil pastels, or soft
  pastels can be used

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Design Due

• Thursday, October 27, 2010
• NO Late work will be accepted
• This will go on first 9 weeks grades
• As we make our cards, it really is amazing to
  think of the first cards and their significance
  to our history. And to think it was all just to
  save a little time.