Hallmark

     It was a little bit surreal to be in the hallmark factory after having seen thousands of hallmark cards, advertisements, and even hallmark movie specials throughout the course of my life. Our tour began with a general explanation of the primary products that they make in this Hallmark plant. They described that they buy high quality paper from sustainable forests in the U.S. so that their cards have a higher quality of color and resiliency (cards that don't come out curved). We were shown samples of their "flitter" (glitter), "flock" (fuzz or hair texture), "virko" (thermographic printing of gloss) and foil, as well as heat sensitive inks for customizable cards they make in smaller volumes.
     Their cards are designed and then they create dies to cut the blanks for each card, for the sake of being able to make multiple card lines at once, they then attach multiple cards dies to one board that will cut all of the cards. Quantities of less than 25,000 cards are cut with a magnesium die to be cost effective, but lines with above 25,000 cards to produce use the more expensive brass dies, which last longer.
     After the cards are cut most of the way and pressed out of their stacks of sheets using a scrap press, some cards are sent to be embossed with the foil. This process involves adhering the foil to the card and then being pressed in a die with positive and negative sides to create a texture pattern on the front of the card. Other cards are sent to be either flocked or flittered. Flitter is the simpler of the two and involves applying glue spraying with flitter, sucking off excess, and sending the card through ovens to set. Flocking is a similar process but is done in a temperature and humidity controlled environment for better results, and even uses static charge to make the flock stand up on cards that need that specific texture. Hallmark also colors, cuts, folds and adheres paper into envelopes in one dramatic and fast machine we got to see working. Aside from the cards, this hallmark plant also did large scale screen prints onto paper but this process was not active at the time and seemed to be a relatively small portion of their work.