The book of Complete Guide to Greeting Card Design & Illustration and my merry sketches

I have been spending long holiday reading this book. The Complete Guide to Greeting Card Design and Illustration. It's a pretty old book, printed in 1994. I bought it when I was beginning to think about studying graphic design. After browsing some pages without reading details, I left it sitting on the shelf and almost forgot about it until I thought of working on greeting cards again.

The book is very readable, clear and precise, full of sample works with insightful explanations. it also has perspectives from successful greeting card designers who openly talk about their paths to success. I had thought the content might be outdated already due to its age but delightfully found that it was still helpful in the present time context. The book focuses mainly on greeting card design marketing but I think it can be adapted in other art-related business in general too.

There's so many valuable info in this book that I actually take notes while reading it. Feeling like going back to school :)  I like that while jotting downs some words that struck me then some related ideas just popped up and I had to sketch them down. And now I have more rough ideas for my art. I feel productive even though I'm not in front of the computer :)

The very important keyword I derive from what I have read so far is "emotional appeal". Greeting cards need to communicate successfully to both senders and receivers of the cards. Emotion plays the most significant role in this. And so does other kinds of art. I think about my stationery design and how I can incorporate this very keyword into my work becomes a challenge to me now :)

I'm working on another flower design. I will keep this in mind and see how I can apply what I have learned from this book to my work :)