Our third trip for Materials and Processes was to Hallmark which was a lot more of what I expected when thinking of a factory. But I never expected so much work to be put into a single card. There is printing, cutting, more cutting, sparkles, felt, pressing, folding, packaging and more. The sparkle machine was cool because the way they applied the glue to the specific spots was by having a plastic sheet of the design of the card with wholes in it, the glue then was spread over this piece while the cards ran under it. Then sparkles sprinkle over them.
The company also makes their own machines with the engineers they hire. These machines are very secretive because they are the only ones in the world. I think its impressive that hallmark takes the machinery into there own hands instead of waiting for some machine making company to come up with something.
The background of Hallmark was also interesting. Hallmark started from nothing and became so much, but it was because someone took a risk with their whole life. I think this dare devil attitude is really intimidating and hard to have, but I know it is something that is necessary in the design world.