Designing a hand illustrated versatile yet unique birthday card
Starting up my new small business during Lockdown was no mean feat, I had all these ideas in my head but what designs will be popular? I didn’t know! I think that like Art, you cannot predict what will be popular, which one will sell the most, which one will draw in the audience. There may be phases of popularity, for example remember the sun, moon and stars era of the 90’s?! Yeah I was a HUGE fan, my bedroom ceiling was a shrine to this era! But I do feel it’s very much trial and error, and that’s okay. One persons favourite design doesn’t appeal to another. It is all very interesting too! So, what makes a successful unique birthday card design? Here’s what I have learnt so far…
I printed my first batch of cards back in October 2020, I had a few animal based designs, nature studies and some lockdown doodles which mirrored the feelings we all had about the pandemic and how it was affecting our mental health. I wanted to provide a service to help as well as producing unique birthday card designs; and so became my “Give a Little Love” range for people to be able to send a little ‘hug in a card’ to let someone they love know that they were thinking of them.
I have learnt that whimsical unique birthday card designs are popular; create a character not just an illustration or drawing, name them, play with them, make up stories about them! Take my “Flamina the Flamingo” card design; she was born after a visit to Paignton zoo in the Summer of 2020, my Instagram followers went through her birth process with me from initial sketch to printing. We even had a naming ceremony, and the unique birthday card “Flamina the Flamingo” was born! She has become my best seller. She has had a few outfit changes already, and with Galentines just around the corner she will be flying the flag for all gal pals across the globe!
People LOVE playful animal based designs. My card “Zebra Party Time” was initially a doodle for the 4th of July; she was tweaked a little for printing, and remains another birthday best seller along with “ROARsome birthday” (this is actually my only card which states ‘birthday’ on it anywhere as I’m trying to make my cards as versatile for many celebratory occasions!). These three popular animal cards I made into a “Party Animal Bundle” so you can get three unique birthday card designs all in one money saving pack! Win win!
Be eccentric. Be different. Be adventurous! A couple of other fanciful and unique birthday card designs I have done are “Out of this World”; a space themed unique birthday card design. The planets are the balloons. It’s simple, yet fun and it’s different. I went along this same theme with my “Dreams and Wishes” design too; a dandelion clock wish is transformed into a hot air balloon. This is one of my favourites, but as I mentioned earlier, it is not as popular as I would have imagined it might be! Flamina always comes out on top!
So there you have it; my findings so far on how to create a unique birthday card design which sells… and I’ll be honest, this is all very new to me! Anyone with any tips are welcome to share them with me too!
Thank you for stopping by… I hope you’ll stay a while, it’s fun here! You can browse my little shop of curiosities here:
