My Dad's 56th Birthday Card

Tomorrow, on the 8th April, my Dad is turning 56. It is becoming a tradition for me to create cards for my friends and family when it is their birthday, or any other special occasion. Instead of going to my local card shop and buying a random card, I find it more exciting and sentimental to make my own cards.

My Dad is a very funny and unique person. He is quite shy in public, however when he is around people who he is very comfortable around, he acts like a energetic toddler, not a (nearly) 56 year old man. I knew that I wanted this to be a funny card, instead of a loving card with a heartfelt message. I wanted him to read the card and laugh.

To start this process, I googled "funny birthday Dad jokes" and found a list of potential jokes which I could use as the context of the design. A lot of the jokes were definitely Dad jokes, but they did not make me laugh, or even smile. For example, "Have a grate birthday. Sorry for the cheesy pun". I understand the clear joke being made here and the pun which they are making, but it is not original or funny, to me personally anyways. Me and my Dad have very similar humour, so I knew when I found a joke which made me laugh, it would most likely make him laugh too.

The joke I decided to use was "Knock knock. Who's there? Omar. Omar, who? Omar gosh, it's your birthday!". This jokes stood out to me among the rest of the dad jokes. It wasn't the repetitive, boring "Hap-pea birthday" with an image of a pea. It was creative, and something that I've never heard or seen before. It was unique and new. When I read this joke, it made me laugh out loud, which made me come to the conclusion that this joke was going to be the one I used for my Dad's birthday card.

The image below shows the final card which I made my Dad for his birthday. This is probably my favourite card design which I have created due to a variety of different reasons, varying from the design approach to the attention to detail.

The first decision I made for this design was choosing a colour for the background. I instantly knew that the background was going to be a shade of green because green is my dad's favourite colour. I decided it would be most appropriate for the chosen green to be a vibrant, bold shade. It allows the card design to be more noticeable, particularly from a distance, and to stand out against the other cards which he is going to be gifted for the special day. I also decided that the background was not going to involve any texture, patterns or gradient because I wanted the attention to be purely on the content in the foreground, being the phone screen.

Whilst on the topic of the chosen colour palette, the secondary colour of choice was a lighter shade of green, which is used on the phone screen. The concept of using a limited colour palette seems to be a technique which I have found myself gravitating towards as a designer. Using one/two colours (not including black and white, of course) helps allow the design to appear more structured and clean.

The top section of the phone has to be my favourite part of the design. I used one of my favourite images of my Dad to symbolise the contact image to make it appear that I was messaging him. The photo is also very fitting because it was taken a few years ago on his birthday, where he is pulling a silly face with a birthday cake. I added a black stroke around this photo so it helped match the aesthetic of the rest of the design.

The typeface which I chose for all of the type on this page is named "Avocados". Initially, I was planning on using a realistic typeface by using the same typeface iMessage use, which would be "SF Pro", in order to make the design appear more professional. However, I decided quickly that this was not appropriate, crucial or necessary. The atmosphere of this design is lighthearted and funny, so I decided it was much more fitting to use a typeface which was fun and simple. Something which appears as if someone wrote the text by hand. Nothing too serious. Instead of simply having "Dad" as the contact name, I added the emote "<3" on the end, which represents a heart. Emotes such as <3, :) and :D is something I commonly use over text, so adding this is both personal to me and relevant to the context of this image being over text, on my own personal phone. It helps add my own personality to the design, ever so slightly.

The bottom section of the phone is also one of my favourite aspects of this design, due to the cool mini icons which have been generated through editing the image of the phone. Using Adobe Illustrator, I selected the image and used the "Image Trace" tool to create an outline of the phone, which in turn created these icons. They are not perfect, however I think that is part of the beauty. It has created a unique, artistic, cartoon-like design, which helps radiate fun and playful energy, which is also being radiated from the typeface used in the text messages.

The most important part of this design was the messaging section. This was crucial to get correct in order to get the joke across. I added the date of my Dad's birthday as an extra bit of detail, as well as 2023, so if my Dad does decide to keep this card, he can clearly see what year this was made.

In order for these messages to appear realistic, I referenced to the iMessage app quite frequently and this influenced a lot of the final decisions that I made. For starters, the green messages are on the right side and the grey messages are on the left because this is exactly how it is displayed on iMessage. I also added the tail on the appropriate side of the shape to create the text bubble. This attention to detail really helps bring the design to life. As mentioned previously, adding punctuation is often something I personally add very often in my text messages to help portray a certain tone of voice. For example, ellipses helps create a sense of suspense and exclamation marks help portray excitement. I regularly added punctuation in the design above, including question marks, ellipses and exclamation marks in order to portray the specific tone of voice which I wanted to.

As well as creating sent text messages, I also created a typed message which hasn't been sent yet, at the bottom of the page, stating "Very funny... Happy Bday!". This is clear that is hasn't been sent yet because there is no tail on the end of the shape to represent a speech bubble and there is a green arrow button on the furthest right, which represents the send button on the iMessage app. This is yet again another example of my attention to detail within this design.

However, this image shown above was not my first attempt...

The image above shows my first attempt, and there are a few issues when it comes to this image which I needed to fix. Sadly, I noticed these issues once I printed off the card and wrote inside it. I was told by people around me that it wasn't too big of a problem and that he would not notice, however I wanted the design to be perfect. There is no point creating a design and having a final product which has evident flaws. I felt like there was no other option other than correcting my mistakes, heading back to Illustrator and restructuring the text.

The first issue was the "Omar gosh, it's your birthday", which should be "Omar gosh, it's my birthday". The grey text's are sent from my Dad, which is evident as my Dad's photo is shown as the top as the contact I am messaging off of my own phone. I forgot that I was the green speech bubbles and my dad was the grey bubbles. As stated previously, this felt like a crucial issue which I needed to go back and correct. Due to the same reasoning, "You are so funny, Lauren!" is also incorrect, because the green bubble is a response from myself (Lauren), not my Dad.

Once these issues were corrected, I felt very proud of this design. I would have not felt this sense of fulfilment or pride towards this design if I did not make these adjustments. Attention to detail and having a keen eye is most definitely an important attribute for designers to have.

Above is the final printed card which I am planning on giving my Dad tomorrow for his birthday. This is most definitely my most favourite card design which I have created so far, purely for the context. Using a cheesy, yet funny joke on my card design which I can imagine is going to make him laugh is more exciting to think about, over the gift of a day trip away for two which I am also gifting him, clearly showing the amount of pride I have towards my own designs, how invested I get to the projects I involve myself in and how sentimental a homemade card can be, particularly when compared to the cards which can be purchased for 79p down the local card shop.