We send Christmas cards for lots of reasons—to keep in touch with faraway friends, remind family members we love them, and share updates about our lives. Hallmark’s new Paper Wonder cards were created to do one more thing: Tell a holiday story. With clever folds and pops and surprising details, each one lets you peek into a magical world. We talked to Hallmark Artist Daniel M. about the thought that went into the collection.
When you’re designing these, you have to think all the way around the idea: What’s happening now? What happened earlier? What happens next? Consumers can look all around the card, so on the back of one Santa card, there’s a plate of half-eaten cookies and a note.
To illustrate a dimensional card, you have to suspend what you know about reality. You’re abstracting perspective and squashing space, saying, “This is a cut piece of paper—believe in it.”
Sometimes you see the story unfold when you open the card and the carriage slides across the card or Santa’s sleigh goes across the sky. There’s a lot of magic in the tiny and small.
We want to engage the viewer so they become part of the story—that’s where the magic is. You’re outside looking in, and even the lighting in your room affects the light and shadows in the card.
We try to think about why you’re giving a card to someone else. Especially at Christmas, we connect over stories.
Take a peek at the new Paper Wonder cards on Hallmark.com.