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Visiting cards, the essential device of etiquette solemnly announces the arrival of their owners. Visiting cards synonymous to calling cards first made their appearance in the fifteenth century in China and subsequently in Europe in the seventeenth century. The visiting cards were created with a purpose of soberly making the prospective hosts know the arrival of the owner of the card. They were at first delivered to the servants of the hosts by the footmen of aristocrats and of the royalty. The visiting cards which were adopted from the English and French decorum have become common amongst the European and the American aristocracy. This is due to the fact that the whole procedure of receiving and delivering the cards depended upon the presence of servants at the door thereby confining them to the social classes which employed servants.
Visiting cards were an indispensable accessory to the nineteenth century middleclass though they were used by the royalties in the seventeenth century Europe. The visiting cards serve as tangible evidence of meeting social obligations as well as a note of introduction. The standard form of visiting cards that were generally used was a plain card bearing only the name of the owner but often there were cards which had the name of the gentleman’s club added to it.
But now-a-days designing visiting cards have also become an art with more and more people preferring to take it up as a profession. Usually the formal cards are dominated by a single color or a maximum of 2 colors. The Times New Roman and the Arial are the first choice in the case of formal cards with bold and thick font highlighting the company’s title and the smallest address font occupying the bottom of the card.
There are various types of cards available in the market including simple cards, plastic coated and pearl finish cards. Innovation is the word of the market, so graphics is also used to make the cards more attractive though some might consider them to be a trifling bit of paper. The design and the layout of the visiting cards convey a subtle and unmistakable intelligence.
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