If you're new to designing greeting cards, you might be wondering if there are any tips or tricks to help you card be as successful as possible and appealing to your intended audience, so that you drive sales upward. We've put together this handy blog post containing lots of useful information that will hopefully turn you from a good greeting card designer to a GREAT one!
Consider the Sending Occasion
When you're working on building our your portfolio, it's important to target the main and most popular sending occasions. The obvious one is of course birthday, but there's also Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day and Christmas. We call these the primary card-sending occasions - as they're the most popular! Secondary card-sending occasions include things like new home, new job, baby and expecting, and congratulations. After that, things get a bit more niche, so stick to the main ones at the beginning to give yourself the best springboard.
...that being Said
Whilst it's definitely better to add some basic text to your card to clearly define the occasion, why not get a little bit more creative with it? Your text and image should go hand-in-hand, and work well together. You may have heard the phrase 'the art attracts and the verse sells' - and we couldn't agree more! You get extra points if you can be funny with it. Before you jump straight into the imagery, spend some time thinking up creative ways of sending a unique message with words - THEN match up the images. You could revolutionise your greeting card portfolio!
Give your Card a Clear Caption
You might be the best designer in the world, but if your card doesn't have a clear caption or intended sending occasion, you may struggle to achieve success. Even if it's just a simple 'Happy Birthday', 'Merry Christmas', or 'Happy Valentine's Day', it can really help increase the likliehood of a purchase.
Keep things Simple
When it comes to greeting cards, less is more. Keep things clean, with a good level of colour contrast, and free from clutter. You want your message to be immediately clear and to stand out - whether that be online or on a shelf in a card store. Online images especially need to be kept simple, since they're often listed as small thumbnails on wesbites. Too much detail, using a thin font and making low-contrast colour choices are things to be avoided where possible.
Composition is Important
Composition is always important when it comes to design, but it is especially important when designing cards for in-store sales (it doesn't apply so much to online designs). Since cards in shops are often stacked in tiers (think about how they're stored in your local supermarket, for example), sometimes the lower part of the card gets obscured by the design in the tier below it. Therefore, it's important that your caption/key message is visible in the top one to two thirds of the design. Don't leave this part blank! If the only part of the card the buyer is seeing is a simple coloured background, why would they pick it up?
Furthermore, you should make sure your design is making the best use of the space. We're not saying fill the entire card, or not to create minimalist designs, but to consider what is going to make your card the most attractive to the buyer.
Be Diverse!
If you're using people in your card designs, try and be as diverse as possible - different skin tones, sexualities, genders. Alternatively, keep things ambiguous - why does skin have to be skin coloured, or do people need to resemble a particular gender? Experiment with colour and style and come up with something truly unique to truly attract the buyer.
Beware of Copyright
We always say, if you're not sure, then don't do it. Copyright infringement claims can be really damaging to both your reputation and regrettably, to your bank balance as well. Avoid using trademarks, brand names, celebrities or famous people, or copyrighted work in your designs. If you're using stock imagery or downloading fonts, PLEASE make sure to check the license needed for commerical use. Often you can download photos or fonts for peronal use, but that doesn't cover you when your designs move into the public sphere. It's always better to use a handdrawn font, since then you can be SURE you own the copyright.
Develop Personalisable Cards
In the online sphere, there's a HUGE market for personalisable or photo upload cards. Where offered, these cards tend to trump the static card designs available. Make the most of the opportunity and jump on board this popular trend to increase your sales potential!
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