Custom Pop-Up Cards and Eyeletting can provide the WOW Factor for Company Christmas Cards.

Sending a custom printed Christmas card is a must for many companies each December but the choice of card is proving to be more and more difficult each year. Once upon a day it was regarded as sufficient to send a greeting of goodwill to say “Thank-you for your custom”. The importance of sending a card that is better than that sent by the competition has also grown quite significantly and in large companies the onerous task of satisfying in-house corporate egos has to be taken into account.

Another consideration that changes annually is a bizarre fear factor. There are so many things about Christmas that are now regarded as non-PC that the choice of Christmas greeting can be filled with trepidation. I was in a store in California a couple of years ago and was reprimanded for wishing someone a “Happy Christmas”. Apparently some people find the word “Christmas” offensive and so to be on the safe side everyone now goes around wishing each other “Happy Holiday”.

So, how do you get over these obstacles and still manage to win brownie points all over the place? One easy solution would be to send a calendar instead but if the head of the company insists on sending a card then a totally bespoke product might well prove to be the answer. Making the card into a product that will catch the customer’s eye is a must and whilst the quality of the graphics, the print production and the finish are absolutely crucial so is the addition of a “wow factor” such as that created by a pop-up card.

Many printers have sufficient knowledge of basic cardboard engineering techniques to be able to help with the mechanics though it is probably advisable to talk to a specialist before embarking on production. A Google search for something like “cardboard engineering techniques”, “cardboard engineering mechanisms” or “creative cardboard engineering” should direct you to a helpful source.

However, there are other ways to add that extra something to a card and one humble device that has been with us for years has now started to emerge as a decorative tool. I am talking about metal eyelets.

Eyeletting is becoming more and more popular as a design tool and it is a relatively inexpensive and easy way of adding something a little bit different to give a promotion a lift. The greeting card industry is taking notice and quite a number of cards now feature eyelets as embellishments. The hand made greeting cards industry is particularly to the fore in this area.

Traditionally, eyeletting has been used to strengthen paper when affixing string, such as in use as luggage tags or swing tickets. However, people looking for new ideas for design have started to use eyeletting for decorative purposes or to give a promotional product that little bit of “something different”. I have seen examples recently where eyelets have been added to promotional marketing products such as promotional pop-up cards, sliding calculators and presentation folders for example just to add an extra bit of creative design. Eyeletting is also used occasionally as a binding tool for promotional booklets as an attractive alternative to more traditional binding methods.

The success of adding eyelets to a promotional product will depend entirely on the designer and if the graphics lend themselves to the use of eyelets then the results can be very effective indeed. It’s an idea that is certainly worth consideration to help to transform a mundane Christmas greeting into one with a “Wow factor”.