Creator Guide
At thortful we are known for being a marketplace where you can find the best greeting cards for every occasion. As we have thousands of cards uploaded weekly, we moderate to ensure what we offer to our customers is high quality and the best in the greeting card market. Here is our guide on how you can create great designs for thortful:
High Quality
We print up to size A4 so we require you to upload image files which are at least 2506 x 1772 pixels, as this means that we can print them at a high quality (300 DPI). The largest image size we accept is 5012 x 3544 pixels.
Please make sure that the text and/or imagery that you use looks clear and crisp once resized. If you can see fuzzy lines or a pixelation effect then your design won’t be accepted by our moderators.
Style
Whether you choose to use illustration, typography, photography or another style to design your card, always think of what your target audience would like best. The styling you choose should directly appeal to the customer who is buying the card. Great examples of this are the use of bright colours on children’s birthday cards or the use of a beautiful life-like drawing or child-like handwritten card “from the dog”🐶
The majority of our sales are made on a mobile device, so be sure the text you use on your card is legible at thumbnail size
I have found that inputting my own style, personality and humour into a design, is a great recipe for a top selling card. Working with ideas which bring you joy and excite you, will ensure your end designs are original and commercial. If you love them, someone else will too!
Harriet from Harriet LowtherOriginal
Our customers love unique, original content. As we now have thousands of amazing cards on thortful it is really important for us to offer our customers cards that are different to what we currently have. If your design is too similar to another card already on site, we will not add it into the catalogue, though it will still be available on your own profile.
Researching the market for what content is already out there is a very important step in designing the best card.
Commercial
The majority of our customers visit thortful with an occasion and recipient in mind, so it is really important that you consider the customer when creating your design.
When designing, try to put yourself in the position of someone looking to buy a card: who are you buying it for and what's the occasion? A card needs to make a customer think “this is perfect for …” or 'this is really relatable' or 'this is something my ... is going to love”.
As we mentioned on our ‘Become a Creator’ page, occasions always win! Even if your card design is quite specific, it needs to appeal to an audience, even if that audience is quite niche.
Here are some of the most common occasions to create for:
Birthday
Anniversary
Congratulations
Wedding & Engagement
Love and Friendship
Mother's Day
Father's Day
Valentine's Day
Christmas
Thank You
Good Luck
Thinking Of You
Get Well Soon
Sympathy
Please check out our Occasions pages to get an idea of what quality of card designs we add to our main catalogue.
Innovative, Funny, Smart, Beautiful
Our best selling cards are always either innovative, funny, smart or beautiful . It could be a smart play on words, funny illustration, beautiful typography or an innovative use of pop culture references that really sets your card apart from those we already have in the catalogue and appeals to the thortful customer.
If you aren't fast enough to an event and there are already cards out there, a good tip would be trying to find something different to set yours apart. For example, my Boris Johnson card definitely wasn't one of the first, but mixing it with Little Britain made mine just that bit different to ones already out there.
Ben from ‘I Made A Card’Exclusive
What our customers love is that they can’t find most of thortful’s cards anywhere else. This exclusivity is priceless and is what keeps them coming back time and time again. As a result, we value original content and encourage our Creators to produce designs exclusively for thortful. Exclusive cards are highlighted with a badge on site and are given priority over non-exclusive card designs. More details can be found in our Terms of Use.
As a thortful Creator you have full creative control but we hope this guide provides you with some really useful advice on how to create the best cards possible.
We can’t wait to see what you create!
Please use the desktop version of the site to register and start creating
For more information on what type of content we do and don’t allow on thortful please check out our FAQs