Webupon

http://www.yoodoo.com

How many times have you looked for a card for a friend or relation on the High Street and thought: “There just has to be better cards than this!”  What Yoodoo cleverly does is let you choose a card from a selection of artistically designed blanks and then personalise it.

Although this is a UK store, the cards can also, we think, be sent out to all destinations.

The simplest way to start is just to dive in, so select a category from the left hand navigation area.  We chose some categories at random and found what we considered a good selection of cards that had a very ‘artistic’ look and seemed at least as good, if not in most cases better, than the cards in our local card shop.

Of course, it is all a matter of taste but there seemed a wide and interesting selection and, usefully, it is possible to take a particular artist that you like and see other cards that they have made.  To our mind this was a good way to proceed and we found several artists almost at once whose work we enjoyed seeing and who had a good selection of cards.

The list of categories, too, seemed comprehensive to cover most situations that we could think of.

In addition to ready-designed cards, it is also possible to upload a photo and have that converted into a card.  The only stipulation on photos is that they should be of printable quality and at least 800 pixels on the shortest side.  Almost all photos taken with a digital camera will fit this criteria so long as you are able to change the resolution to print quality you will not be stuck for choice.

Once selected, it is possible to personalise the card with a greeting as appropriate and then decide about delivery and arrange payment.  This process looked quite straightforward and we were impressed by the detail and explanations in the ‘help’ section.  Although we did not buy a card on this occasion, we would certainly be happy to go back and do so later when the need arises.

In addition to cards, ‘Gingiebear’ figurines are on offer along with flowers and there is also the option of using the corporate section for business cards.  This could prove very useful if you own a small business or are responsible for supplying your firm’s cards.

The site began in 2004 and now seems quite mature.  It is quite graphic intensive although it worked surprisingly quickly on our machine.  The design of the website and the colours used gives it a fresh, inviting feel and we were happy to spend an hour or so looking around and trying the various features.

Like so many websites these days, there is a link towards the bottom of the main page to add them on Facebook and Twitter.  This is useful in that it ensures that the url is always available from wherever you are.

Compared to the prices in our local store, we thought that the cards were not too expensive and we decided to bookmark the site ourselves for later and so the website comes very much as a recommended site.