Valentine Card

The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced to ancient China, who exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year and the early Egyptians, who conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls.

By the early fifteenth century, greeting cards handmade paper were exchanged in Europe. It is known that the Germans had New Year greetings printed on wood since 1400, and hand made paper Valentines were exchanged in various parts of Europe since the early to mid-sixteenth century.

However, by 1850, the greeting card had been transformed from a relatively expensive gift, handmade and hand-delivered to a popular and affordable means of personal communication, due largely to advances in printing and mechanization .

This trend continued, followed by new trends like Christmas cards, the first of which appeared in published form in London in 1843 when Sir Henry Cole hired artist John Calcott Horsley to design a holiday card that he could send their friends and acquaintances.

In the 1860s companies like Marcus Ward & Co, Goodall and Charles Bennett began mass production of greeting cards. They used well known artists such as Kate Greenaway and Walter Crane as illustrators and designers of the card.

Technical developments like color lithography in 1930 propelled onward manufacturing of the greeting card.

Currently, new technologies have opened a new field using the cards to enable the sending virtual cards via internet. To this end, represented a large number of websites that offer a number of designs and styles that can be submitted by email.