JacquieLawson.com

...by a member of the JacquieLawson.com team, and whose 'day job' happens to be a Chartered Accountant!

There are a number of beautifully drawn Christmas designs too, in which the illustrations light up and I have to say that these are among my own personal favourites, along with the two Hallowe'en cards, and the 'Pelmanism' cards, where you have to click on the squares to reveal matching pairs of pictures, a bit like a memory game. When ...
...with the greeting. The Pelmanisms are fantastic fun for children and are great favourites of my two boys, and indeed I've even known a few adults to have some fun with these.

What you won't find on this site are rude or suggestive cards (not that I'm against these, in fact I've sent many a risqué card in my time), but the emphasis here is very much on the family side, with cards for everyone from young children to spinster aunts, and ... more

I discovered this website just before Christmas last year, when a friend sent us an e-card and with the card was an invitation to become a member of the site. I rarely take much notice of such offers, but I was so taken with the card that I decided to take a look at the site. I was equally impressed with what I saw there, and for the relatively small sum of £4.50 for a year's membership, I decided to join. Let me explain what the site is all about and why I consider my £4.50 to have been extremely well spent.

I'll start with a little background information - in 2000, Jacquie Lawson, a trained illustrator, designed an e-card which she sent to some friends, who in turn, sent it on, with the result that Jacquie was inundated with messages from people all over the world, who were delighted with the card. A year or so later, she set up a website to which she periodically added new designs, enabling people to download the cards to send to friends and relatives, and the whole thing became so successful that the website was unable to cope with the extraordinary demand.

Today, courtesy of a much improved modern website, there is a choice of 56 greetings cards, catering for practically every occasion you can think of, including Valentines Day, Hallowe'en and of course Christmas. You can send Thank You, Congratulations, New Baby and New Home cards among many others, and there are even American Independence Day and Thanksgiving cards available to send.

With this in mind, you'd be forgiven for thinking, as I did, that this is an American company, but in fact it's a wholly British concern, being based in Jacquie's home village of Lurgashall in West Sussex, and the English country cottage featured in the Christmas card we received is actually Jacquie's own cottage. Most of the small team involved in the company also live in Lurgashall, and the local pub even appears in one of the cards.

The company freely admits that it doesn't aim to compete with the big e-card companies, and there's no advertising on the site, which is funded entirely by membership fees, and indeed, it's quite pleasant to browse the site without being interrupted by pop-ups and animated trailers for all sorts of unrelated products. It's possible to look around the site and even preview a limited number of cards without becoming a member, but you do of course have to join in order to send a card.

As well as being animated, each of the cards has a musical accompaniment, either a classical excerpt, or an especially composed piece, and to begin the animation, you're instructed to click on a specified part of the illustration, which sets a mini-story into motion. My children love doing this, and I think we've probably previewed just about every card in the collection, some more than once. Each card plays for about a minute or two, and it can be replayed any number of times.

Many of the cards revolve around the activities of Chudleigh, who is in fact a real eight year old dog, a cross between a chocolate Labrador and a Springer Spaniel. These are probably some of the most entertaining cards on the site, and I've sent lots to friends who are dog owners, and who have been enchanted by the animated antics of Chudleigh and his 'lady' friend Molly. There's even a section of the website devoted to Chudleigh's Diary, which is ghost-written by a member of the JacquieLawson.com team, and whose 'day job' happens to be a Chartered Accountant!

There are a number of beautifully drawn Christmas designs too, in which the illustrations light up and I have to say that these are among my own personal favourites, along with the two Hallowe'en cards, and the 'Pelmanism' cards, where you have to click on the squares to reveal matching pairs of pictures, a bit like a memory game. When you match the pairs correctly, the full picture emerges, complete with the greeting. The Pelmanisms are fantastic fun for children and are great favourites of my two boys, and indeed I've even known a few adults to have some fun with these.

What you won't find on this site are rude or suggestive cards (not that I'm against these, in fact I've sent many a risqué card in my time), but the emphasis here is very much on the family side, with cards for everyone from young children to spinster aunts, and I can imagine the site appealing to the American market, particularly with the cards designed specifically for the US National Holidays. There are some very intricate floral designs, ideal for older relatives and friends, and while some of the cards could be defined as being a bit 'cheesy', there's absolutely nothing on this site which could possibly cause offence, in my opinion. At this point, any cynics reading this will doubtless be reaching for the sick-bucket, and all I'd say here is, well perhaps this site isn't for you!

When you elect to become a member, you'll be greeted with a friendly reminder that the site is a very small one, and not to expect there to be hundreds of cards. You're politely asked, prior to joining, to make sure you are able to view the card previews and that you understand exactly what you will be purchasing, since membership is final and no refunds will be made after joining. After that, just a few basic details are required, and you can choose how to pay your subscription fee. All the major cards are accepted, as well as PayPal, and it's even possible to pay in cash (certain currencies only) or by cheque. Credit card transactions are processed under a secure 128 bit SSC encryption, in case anybody is worried about giving out their card details.

The membership fees are, I think, incredibly good value - a year's subscription will cost you £4.50 (€7, US$8, CAD10 or AUD10), with a 12½ per cent discount for a two-year membership, and for that you can send as many cards as you want. In the past ten months, I've sent cards to dozens of people, and although I haven't made as much use of the service as I might have done, I do feel that I've more than had my money's worth, and the cards I've sent have probably generated a much greater reaction from the recipients than any of the traditional shop-bought versions.

It's very easy to send a card - choose the one you want to send, enter the recipient's name and e-mail address; then add your personal message, and decide when you want the card to be sent. It can be sent straight away, in which case it takes between 5 and 15 minutes, depending on web traffic, or you can choose a date in the future, whereupon the card will be sent at around 1am on the date selected. I find this facility particularly handy, as I often make plans a long way ahead, and then invariably forget to carry them out when the time comes. If you change your mind in the meantime, you can edit or delete the cards, and at least this way, if Great-Aunt Agatha falls off her perch the day before her 100th birthday, you have a chance to stop the card being sent, thus avoiding any further unnecessary distress to Great-Uncle Cuthbert!

When you send a card, you have the option to add the recipient's details to your address book for future reference, which saves you having to re-enter the information if you send another card at a later date. Another useful function is to send a gift membership with your card, although I have yet to use this facility.

There are some alert options available at no extra cost, including notification of when your card has been sent, and when it's been viewed by the recipient - I've selected both these options, and they haven't failed me yet - in addition you will always be notified if a card can't be delivered for any reason, for example, if the e-mail address is invalid. One point to mention here is that the site recently carried a message explaining that it was unable to deliver cards to MSN and Hotmail addresses, owing to those providers treating the cards as spam, and I can verify that that is indeed the case, as we found out when we tried to send a card to a relative who has an MSN address. Unfortunately, we didn't get a message to say it couldn't be delivered, because the address was a valid one, and it proved a little embarrassing to try to find out discreetly whether the person concerned had received the card. It must be said that this situation isn't any fault of JacquieLawson.com, which is currently trying to resolve the problem, but it's something to bear in mind in order to avoid any disappointment or embarrassment.

Lastly, some technical information: in order to view the cards to maximum effect, you need to have Macromedia Flash installed on your computer. If you don't already have this, it can be installed from the JacquieLawson website, free of charge. In addition, while it's possible to download a small number of the card designs as screensavers, this won't work on Apple Mac systems at present.

I'd certainly have no hesitation in recommending this website, in terms of both quality and value. New cards are being added all the time, and although 56 cards sounds on the face of it like a very small selection, it's often quite difficult to choose which card to send, and I for one am fully satisfied with the range available. I think it goes without saying that I'll be renewing my membership in December. Take a look - I'm sure you'll be impressed.

http://www.jacquielawson.com/

Updated, 27th November, 2005: Two further cards have been added to the range, and this year's new Christmas cards are expected to appear on the site on or around 9th December. In addition, and by popular demand, a range of printed Jacquie Lawson cards is now available and can be found at Zazzle.com. U.S. members can also buy Jacquie Lawson postage stamps! 

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