Creating and sending e-cards

You’d think that a lot of artists would be creating and sending e-cards. It’s a suggestion that I’ve made and one of my readers wants to know how to go about doing it. Darned if I know. I’m just the idea-generator. 🙂

I found some e-postcards on Claudine Hellmuth’s site.

Anyone out there making their own e-cards that wants to share how they did it? Or just a link so we can see them?

Share this post

14 thoughts on “Creating and sending e-cards”

  1. I did e-cards about 9-10 years ago and think of them as very old fashioned now. I suppose they don’t have to be but I’d be surprised to see them much. Apple still have them, as does Howies (a favourite clothing company of mine). Sometimes I go send one when I’m bored to a far flung friend. But as a word of mouth form of promotion? Not really. The people I send Howies cards will never buy from them (too far away) and I don’t send Apple ones. I do, however, highly promote both brands and their products in many other ways. I’d rather share an rss post, send an entire html page to a friend (you can do this easily in Safari), click a “tell a friend” link, or just Twitter, blog, or chat about it in a forum. The internet is so “live” now, postcards seems static and a bit dead. But there’s no reason they couldn’t reinvented somehow.

  2. On my old website, all images and photographs have a “Send as an eCard” button, for example: http://www.joekaz.net/galleries/2006/html/adirondack_chairs.html (I have yet to implement this on my newer site, http://www.joekaz.com). The eCard system has gotten a lot of use, but has not resulted in any business for me yet, so I’m not sure if I’ll put it on my .com site. The way I did this was to rather heavily modify the Postcard script from Jason’s Scripts so that it integrates into my online gallery. But people could use this script as-is for a less integrated approach, like the demo on that site.

  3. I’ve tried them years ago as well, used Bravenet.net tools and programs and it was not the easiest code/layout to set up plus did not have the features I was looking for, like email capture and usage reports. If you haven’t yet seen Jacqui Lawson’s cards, here’s a link to her site (limited release animated e-cards): http://www.jacquielawson.com

  4. I have an artist friend who sends me a Jacqui Lawson holiday card every year, but other than that I don’t open any e-card attachments, period, even if I know the person. Too much bad stuff gets loaded into them without the sender ever knowing about it. I don’t want my machine to become some hacker’s zombie. I’ve recently gone Mac and am planning to switch to Safari, which has a lot more graphical possibilities than Thunderbird. I’d also rather send an email or get people commenting on my blog. I also don’t send anything to my mailing list with attachments unless it’s by prior arrangement, like an image of a paintings they might be interested in.

  5. My Mother-in-Law loves the Jacqui Lawson cards <http://www.jacquielawson.com/> and sends them to me for most holidays. These cards are very well done from a visual perspective (I wish her website was half as attractive.) I have a dot mac membership, and this allows me to upload my own photos into their card template. I like to send e-cards of my artwork to friends and family. I’ve thought about offering e-cards on my website in the past, but it seems to me to be a lot of work for very little, if any, financial reward.

  6. SendCard is a free php script for adding eCards to your site. <http://www.sendcard.org>. It does require setup and you have to create a database on your server. It can be difficult unless you know what you are doing. I set it up on my cat’s website, and on a friend’s, and it took quite a bit of trial and error work. There is documentation on their website, so if you have had a bit more experience than me, it might be a snap for you. The two sites I set it up on are <http://www.ravenswingstudio.com/sendcard/index.php> and <http://www.earthlightimages.com/sendcard/index.php>.

  7. Mary Emma Allen

    I used to open e-cards and enjoy receiving them. Then spammers and hackers began using them for their own reasons, even to infect our computers with viruses. So there is only one person whose e-cards I’ll open. People do still like to receive cards and notes in the mail. So I spend the postage to send these to customers and special people in my life. I regularly send postcard updates about my business and products to customers and find the results are worthwhile.

  8. I am offering free e-cards on my website (http://www.dorisjoa.com) with images of my own art. People can send them also with music (like Happy birthday and many other songs). I needed the help of a webmaster to do this on my website, but I like to offer them. When people get such an e-card they always are able to see from whom this e-card comes, so they know it is safe to open them.

  9. Alyson B. Stanfield

    All: I agree. Jacqui Lawson is exactly who I was thinking of when I wrote about these, but her name wasn’t on the tip of my fingers. Thanks for that. Tina, I think some e-cards are passé, but not if you make it original and about your art–like Jacqui does. Everyone likes to get these. Jerry: Good old Google! Nancy: Cool! Thanks for the link! Doris: I’d like to know how you did this. I couldn’t see them in an obvious place.

  10. Alyson, I would like to share how to build this script for e-cards, but as I mentioned in my post I needed the help of a webmaster. He made the script and he has shown me how I can change the images. I am sorry when I cannot be a better help.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top

Yes! Please send the Comprehensive Exhibition Checklist + Timeline

You will also receive my almost-weekly news for your art business. You can unsubscribe at anytime.
Privacy + Terms

May I send you this?

I would love to send you my Comprehensive Exhibition Checklist + Timeline. It’s 5 pages of tasks for now, later, and after your show. 

Alyson's signature

You’ll also receive my almost-weekly news for your art business.

Privacy + Terms