Before the invention of the printing press attributed to Johannes Gutenberg in 1450, prayer cards, also known as holy cards, were individually handcrafted by Catholics. These cards contained a representation of a religious theme or place and were made from hand-colored wood. Apart from the obvious reason of using such cards for prayer, they were also placed on notary forms to show legitimacy and placed in trunks to ward off thieves.
During this period, priests handed out Prayer Cards and the content of the cards required the approval of a bishop.
The oldest surviving Prayer Card is that of San Cristóbal and dates from 1423.
With the invention of the printing press and then the invention of lithography in 1796 by Alois Senefelder, Prayer Cards could be mass produced. Prayer cards were most commonly made about the size of a playing card and eventually became commonplace at Church services, including baptisms, communions, marriages, and funerals.
In the 1900s, as funeral homes began to modernize as we know them today, funeral professionals began purchasing Prayer Cards from vendors and then adding the deceased’s name along with their birth and death dates to the cards with typographic. and thermal printing devices or typewriters. These cards were known as In memoriam cards and were given at funerals and wakes.
As technology progressed and desktop publishing became available in the 1980s, more Prayer Card options became available and the demand for them increased. In addition to names and dates, the cards could eventually contain photos of loved ones, and families would no longer be restricted to just a few prayer options or religious images when making a selection of cards to commemorate their loved ones.
Funeral home professionals are now faced with the task of keeping up with the demand for personalized memorial cards, but graphic designers are not. Restoring old photographs and creating a composition for print are not part of the curriculum for a mortuary science degree.
Although well-intentioned, many funeral professionals strive to produce memorial cards with the aid of computer software, this is an area that should be left to professional graphic designers and printers for a number of reasons.
I can’t begin to tell you how many off-center sentences in such tiny type on flimsy thin cardstock backs with perforated edges I’ve seen spread out at funerals. What is most amazing to me is that they all have the name of the funeral home printed at the bottom of them. Funeral homes that issue low-quality memorial cards to visitors during business hours are missing out on an invaluable opportunity to leave a lasting impression on the deceased’s relatives and those who come to pay their respects. A professionally designed memorial card with your funeral home’s name printed on it is like putting an impressionable business card in the hands of all who enter your place of business and should not be overlooked.
Fortunately, companies like A Loving Memory www.alovingmemory.com provide professionally designed memorial cards for both funeral homes who want to offer their families the highest quality personalization products, and families who want higher quality cards than what their funeral home offers.
