Inspiration - June 2013
I can't believe it's over six months since my last contribution to this page. So much has been happening it's easy to let things like this slip.
One of the highlights of the last few months was a team get-together in Oxford. Most of the JL artistic team work from home, so it's really important from time to time to have a session where we all meet up face-to-face and throw a few ideas around. And we try to choose a location which we think will help inspire new ideas, so Oxford – my old alma mater – seemed like a fine choice.
And indeed it was: we had a great time splashing through the rain to admire the dreaming spires, between productive sessions to thrash out new ideas. One such was our latest card for Father's Day – I can't imagine how the idea of a classic car rally sprang out of a pint in an Oxford pub. But then again, that same pub apparently helped inspire the creation of hobbits, orcs and magic rings, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. It must be something in the beer.
Planning for Christmas - October 2012
I just received an email from our local supermarket inviting me to reserve a turkey for Christmas. It's still only October, and I refuse to allow the ever-longer tentacles of the Christmas marketeers to force me to think about my family arrangements for Christmas just yet. And anyway, we usually do goose!
But in other ways, Christmas is of course very much on our minds, as indeed it appears to be on yours! No sooner had we released the new Circus (see below) than we were bombarded with email from members worried that all that work on the Circus meant we wouldn't be doing an Advent Calendar this year.
Fear not (said he, for mighty dread had seized their troubled minds)! This year our desktop (PC and Mac) offerings will be a brand new Advent Calendar, as well as the London calendar updated for 2012. Additionally, an iPad version of the London calendar is already available in the iTunes store, and we're hoping to release other tablet versions too! As ever, keep an eye open for our Newsletters for more information. (If you don't currently get our newsletters, log on and click My Details, and make sure you've opted in – the check boxes are at the bottom of the page).
The Circus is coming! - September 2012
From the chariot races and gladiator fights of Ancient Rome to the freak shows and menageries of the Victorian era, from the spectacular displays of the Moscow State Circus to contemporary nouveau cirque, circuses have long been part of our culture. Most of us will have fond childhood memories of the excitement, sounds and smells of the Big Top. The circus even inspired John Lennon's song Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite! in Sergeant Pepper. And of course, it has not been without controversy, particularly with regard to the treatment of animals; in recent years many countries have passed legislation restricting or banning the use of wild animals in circuses.
Happily, our own interpretation of the circus will be entirely free of animal cruelty! This is jacquielawson.com, so obviously there will be animals! – but ours are mere flickerings of liquid crystal before your eyes, through which we hope to capture the magic of the circus right there on your desktop.
The launch date for the Jacquie Lawson Circus is very soon, and after months of effort we can't wait to see what you all think! If you'd like prompt notification of the release, do watch out for our Newsletters – or better still, download our Quick Send Widget.
A distinctive style - June 2012
If you look towards the bottom of our e-card category pages, you can still see some of the cards dating right back to the early days of this website, and it's fascinating to see how the style has evolved and yet in so many ways remained constant. As computers have grown more powerful and animation techniques have become more sophisticated, our cards have grown in sophistication and complexity; and of course, as new artists such as Sally Lisney and John Bloom have joined us, they've added their own distinctive touches. But in spite of this, all the cards – even the note card range – seem to have a certain style which makes them unmistakeably JL.
That may be about to change!
In a few weeks' time we'll be launching the first two cards in a brand new series. They're lightly animated sketches, humorous in content, and based on well-known quotations or epigrams. We hope they'll appeal in numerous situations where our existing e-cards and note cards don't quite fit the bill: maybe to a more masculine audience (we're always being asked for more "man" cards!), or to younger viewers and those who don't want to spend 60 seconds or thereabouts watching a full-length e-card. Or just to people who aren't into dogs, cats, teddy bears and flowers!
The new range will of course be in addition to our existing e-cards, which we'll continue to develop as before – so don't worry: Chudleigh, Bertie and all the others aren't ready for retirement yet!
Feline Inspiration - March 2012
Fans who have been with us since the beginning of jacquielawson.com will remember that almost all the early cards described the antics of Jacquie's labrador dog, Chudleigh. Times change and our e-cards now embrace a wide range of subjects, but some of our most popular cards are still those featuring dogs and cats.
Maybe part of the reason for this popularity is that almost all the animals we've incorporated into our e-cards have been drawn from life, and based on real-life pets belonging to the artists. There's nothing like having a dog chasing leaves in the garden or a kitten climbing up your new curtains to alert you to their idiosyncratic characters, their fluid body movements, and the expressions on their faces.
Some years ago one of our longest-serving artists, Sally Lisney, introduced Bertie the spaniel and Fluff the kitten - not to mention an entire tribe of musical teddy bears - to the jacquielawson.com family. Happily the teddy bears are not based on live pets: but when Sally recently decided (under pressure from her daughter, she assures me) to acquire two new kittens, it was only a matter of time before their digital twins would be seen on our pages.
And sure enough, a new birthday card featuring Figaro and Twink will be out shortly!
Round Robin - October 2011
One of the great traditions of a British Christmas is the annual round-robin "family newsletter". Usually it comes from acquaintances with whom you thought (and maybe even hoped!) you'd lost touch, and is peppered with references to little Johnny's Distinction in his piano exam (when you know full well that little Johnny has bananas for fingers), and to exciting events such as the new kitten, the family caravanning holiday, and the village fete. And as often as not there's a photo of their wonderful children, just to remind you how cute they are.
Well, we're thrilled to be able to tell you that from this Christmas, you'll be able to send your annual round-robin letter electronically, courtesy of the Jacquie Lawson Christmas Letter! Of course, the artwork and music will be every bit as beautiful and tasteful as in any Jacquie Lawson e-card; and of course, since you are a Jacquie Lawson member, your round-robin letter will be highly erudite, full of witty remarks and literary references, and it won't mention little Johnny's piano exam at all. But - thanks to the wondrous skills of our technical team - you will be able to include your own photo of your little darlings!
Christmas will never be the same again.
Christmas in July - July 2011
As many of our fans will remember, the highlight of Christmas 2010 was the launch of a brand new idea: our downloadable animated Advent Calendar. If you didn't get a copy, you missed a real treat - but fear not: our e-mailbag has been bursting at the seams with requests for a repeat performance, and we've already started working on a brand new Advent Calendar for Christmas 2011. I'm not allowed to give away too many details, but since it's midsummer here now, the snapshot below seemed particularly appropriate!
Nota Bene - March 2011
Over the last decade or two, e-mail has become such a part of our lives that we sometimes wonder how on earth we ever managed without it. But its convenience and informality come at a price. The format seems to encourage laziness in composition, and carelessly-written e-mails can often appear unintentionally abrupt or even downright rude.
And "smileys" are not an acceptable way of expressing ones feelings! ;-(
The whole process of composition and delivery make email one of the most intrinsically unattractive forms of correspondence ever invented. How can a monochrome message, harshly lit up on a computer screen in a functional but charmless typeface, ever compete for beauty with a hand-written letter, carefully composed on vellum with a green-inked fountain pen?
E-cards, of course, provide an attractive electronic alternative to the bald and boring e-mail, but sending someone a 60-second animation with background music to boot isn't appropriate for all circumstances.
Maybe our new note cards will help to fill the gap. They will allow our members to send the most attractive form of electronic correspondence we've yet seen, with gorgeous designs painted by Jacquie's team (see below), and with plenty of room for epistolary masterpieces, but with all the convenience of an e-card. Maybe they'll encourage people to compose their messages with more care, too.
And no smileys!
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing! - October 2010
Our e-cards can take weeks or months from concept to completion, and everything has to be planned well in advance, especially our more complex Christmas offerings. So one of the challenges of working for jacquielawson.com is the need to get into a Christmassy mood when everyone else is soaking up the sun!
Back in August we gathered together our little group of "herald angels" - Emma, Gemma, India, Izzie, Marina and Meg - to sing a selection of carols for this Christmas's productions. The neighbours must have thought we were mad! Here they are:
The second photo above is a snapshot of our latest Christmas project. We're not revealing too much detail yet, but if you look closely you might guess what we've been up to! All I can say at the moment is that it is easily the most ambitious animation project that we have undertaken, and it'll add a whole new dimension to your and your children's Christmas. We'll give you full details in early November, once we've finished testing it!
Manipulating a mood - September 2010
It's fascinating sometimes to see how each e-card develops from initial sketches, through detailed drawings and paintings, and then into the digital domain with the addition of animation and effects. Often the scene can change dramatically through that process, as the examples below show. The first image is a painting of a pumpkin patch, painted by Bev Pask-Hughes (see below). The second is a screenshot from our forthcoming Halloween card, with a few electronically added effects (and a rather splendid tree)!
The new Halloween card will be released in mid-October and fans of Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals are in for a treat. But that's all I can give away right now!
Another year, another July 4th card - June 2010
Just looking back over previous entries on this page, I realise that the first entry I made was this time last year, discussing the whys and wherefores of a British e-cards site regularly publishing e-cards celebrating America's independence!
And here we are again. Another year, another July 4th card. This year's card will once again feature Chudleigh, the chocolate Labrador whose exploits have enlivened many an e-card over the years. The card is being drawn by John Bloom - as the only American on our team he seemed like a good choice for this one! I can't tell you too much more for fear of spoiling the surprise, but the image below will serve as a bit of a tease!
Brrrr! - March 2010
It is often said that the British talk a lot about the weather, and if that is so then the last few months have given us plenty to talk about. For the last twenty years or so, snow has been something of a rarity in England and for many children and even teenagers, a few inches of snowfall in February 2009 was their first ever experience of sledding, building snowmen and all the other childish joys which the white stuff brings.
But this winter we've barely had a week without at least a wintry flurry, and Lurgashall was completely cut off from the outside world for four days in December. Even the local policeman in his four-wheel-drive Range Rover got stuck in a snowdrift trying to get to an outlying hamlet, and Jacquie's addiction to the Daily Telegraph crossword was forcibly suspended, about which she complained bitterly.
The photo below shows Molly gazing across Lurgashall cricket green, clearly wondering what on earth the world was coming to. But the most stunning image of the winter so far has to be the NASA photograph which we've reproduced below, showing clearly the outline of the British Isles, drenched in white.
However, contrary to the idealised images in our e-cards, Christmas Day was as usual completely snow-free!
Only five weeks to go! - November 2009
Christmas is of course our busiest time of year and we always try to make some really special cards for the whole of the holiday season. This often means starting work on them while the weather is still warm and the swimming pool beckons, which is an odd time to be thinking about Christmas (unless of course you live in Australia or New Zealand)! This year, our new colleague John Bloom was first off with the holiday cards, and could be seen in August in shorts and a t-shirt, drawing Christmas trees and tinsel...!
John first came to our attention when working for another e-card company which was (rather cheekily, we thought) making cards featuring a Labrador dog which bore an uncanny resemblance to our friends Molly and Chudleigh, and - even more cheekily - was doing it rather well. So we're very excited that John is now on our team, and in the time he's been with us he's produced some fantastic cards. He works closely with Bev (see Proper Painting below), and you'll definitely be able to see her influence in his Christmas card. But I can't tell you any more about it - except we think you'll love it!
Proper Painting - September 2009
Computers are wonderful things. But there are some things that are best left in what a scientist might call the analogue domain - the sphere of human endeavour that doesn't involve reducing everything to bits and bytes. Painting pictures is one of those things. For all the fancy digital tricks you can play in Photoshop and the like, there is nothing to beat the delicacy of colour and texture obtainable from a few paintbrushes and a carefully selected palette of watercolours, gouache, and so forth.
That's why many of the background scenes, floral designs, and other elements of Jacquie Lawson e-cards are initially created not by manipulating pixels on a screen but by applying paint to paper, and Beverley Pask-Hughes is our resident master of this infinitely expressive art. Once the original paintings have been completed, they're scanned into the computer, trimmed and generally tidied up, and then the laborious process of animation starts.
And that is one of the many things that differentiate Jacquie Lawson e-cards from the rest!
If you look carefully at the picture of Bev's desk below you can see the beginnings of this year's Hallowe'en card. And in case you were wondering, Bev did tidy up her desk before this photo was taken. Yes, honestly.
Underwater Reflections - July 2009
Last month's "Behind the Scenes" reminded me that one of the most popular e-cards from the early days of jacquielawson.com was From Sea to Shining Sea - the July 4th card featuring underwater scenes which finally make up a collage in the form of the Great Seal of the US. At the time we were a little concerned that people might object to such a great national symbol being made up of seafood - like a sort of patriotic "plat de fruits de mer" - but in the end it turned out to be massively popular, and the card got millions of hits.
We've been working on another "underwater" card recently and you should see it on the website in the next couple of weeks. I'm not allowed to disclose the ending, but it's very atmospheric and I'm sure it'll appeal to children especially. Here's a screenshot as a teaser...
FOURTH OF JULY - June 2009
Celebrating the loss of our most troublesome colony?
jacquielawson.com has published a new e-card for Independence Day almost every year since the site was started. Being a British e-cards site, this may seem rather odd - although perhaps you could argue that the loss of our most troublesome colony deserves to be celebrated! But in fact the first July 4th card was published in 2002 as a mark of goodwill to our transatlantic cousins after the horrific events of September 2001, and it was so popular with our members that July 4th became a firm date in the JL calendar.
Over the years we've featured Chudleigh raising the US flag, we've seen the Great Seal appear as a collage of aquatic life, we've explored all the State Flowers and all the State Birds, and we've even had a marching band made up of teddy bears. This year, the card has been created by Jacquie's niece Sally Lisney, and it features her spaniel Bertie, who you'll have seen in other recent cards such as Christmas Visitors. Here's a photo of them together!
In the new card, Bertie will be exploring the National Archives in Washington DC when he encounters a new friend... But we can't tell you any more without spoiling the surprise! The new card will be launched on our site in late June, and as usual we'll send all members an email to let them know when it's there.