Greeting cards
A greeting card is an illustrated, folded card featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. They can function in a manner somewhat similar to postcards but differ in the fact that unlike postcards, greeting cards are folded and have to be mailed in envelopes that are usualy sold with the card.
View more greeting card examples at
- Various christmas greeting cards at cardsdirect.com
- A bunch of greeting card examples at colormehappy-designs.blogspot.com
- 20 unique greeting cards at blog.uprinting.com
- Fun greeting cards at flickr.com
- Cool greeting card designs at hammond.com
- Handmade greeting cards at cardcustomize.com
- Funny greeting cards at tinyprints.com
- Various birthday cards at hallmark.com
- Cool greting card designs at route1design.com
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Things to consider:
- Size – Make sure it fits in one of the international or regional standard envelope sizes.
- Bleed – add bleed area.
- Resolution – use high resolution images.
- Looks – make it visually appealing according to the purpose.
- Pages – 4 pages, one of which may be blank for the sender to add a signature or handwritten message.
Size
The greeting card size is based on the cheapest way it can be mailed. Therefore, you can choose any shape or size just as long as it fits in one of the standard regional or international envelope sizes.
| Greeting card standard sizes |
||
| Envelope | Inches | Milimeters |
| Baronial 5 | 7 x 5 (folds to 3,5 x 5) | 177,8 x 127 (folds to 88,9 x 127) |
| A-6 | 8,5 x 6 (folds to 4,25 x 6) | 215,9 x 152,4 (folds to 107,95 x 152,4) |
| A-7 | 10 x 7 (folds to 5 x 7) | 254 x 177,8 (folds to 127 x 177,8) |
Note. Since greeting cards are mailed inside rectangular envelopes, the shape of the greeting card does not have to be rectangular like with postcards.
| Envelope dimensions |
|||
| Region | Service | Min Size | Max Size |
| USA | USPS | 127mm x 88,9mm (5″ x 3,5″) | 292,1mm x 155,575mm (11,5″ x 6,125″) |
| UK | Royal Mail | 140mm x 90mm (5,512″ x 3,543″) | 240mm x 165mm (9,449″ x 6,496″) |
View more of the leading global postal services card and letter sizes.
Bleed area
Add a bleed area. The standard bleed size can vary from one printing company to the other but generally is 3mm (0.125 inches). Read more about bleed here.
Color space
In order for the colors on the final printed product to look as close as possible to the colors you chose on your PC display, you should work in 4 color CMYK mode. RGB color space may print off-color, which may be unacceptable for the customer. Spot colors are OK if they can be converted to CMYK or are absolutely required for the design.
Image quality
Just like in most templates for printing purposes, the image placeholders should have high 300 DPI of resolution.
Content
The most common features of a web-to-print greeting card template are:
- Image fields
- 4 pages on 1 fold
- Large text field for the main message
- Multiline text field with auto font resizing
A sample CDR file can be downloaded from your Sample Stationery catalog (go to Summary page).
Other usefull articles on this subject
You can view some more guides and articles about designing greeting cards at:
