Ready to get to grips with Greeting Card printing? Whether it’s for a birthday, anniversary or other special event, now’s the perfect time to let your creativity flow.
Setting your cards up for print may seem a little daunting at first, but we’re here to help. Just follow these simple steps and your designs will be hitting the press in no time at all…
First things first, let’s get your designs artwork-ready. All Greeting Cards have four printable sides, so your artwork should either be two separate pages divided down the middle (this is where the fold will be) or as four separate pages. These will make up the outer and inner sides of your card.
First, choose the finished size of Greeting Card you require. At Printed.com, we offer Greeting Card printing in 6 different sizes:
If you’re uploading your artwork as two-page spreads, it should be double the length. I.e if your card is 148mm x 148mm then the full width of this size when it’s open is 296mm (2 x 148mm).
If you choose single pages, make sure each one is the correct size, i.e all being 148mm so our team can stitch them together for you.
Top Tip: Why not use one of our free Greeting Card templates to quickly get started. Each has four clearly labelled sides, folds and trim lines and is available in every size above.
To make sure your cards hit the presses without delay, don’t forget to check the following when you’re finished setting up:
When creating your Greeting Card it’s important that your pages are set up in the proper order so they look correct when folded.
For cards that fold along the short or long edge, please set up your pages in the following order:
Each will be folded directly down the middle, so make sure each side is even.
Tent fold cards require a couple of extra steps to make sure none of your designs end up wonky after printing.
Set up your pages in this order:
For this type of fold, you must make sure that your front cover image is upside down. It might look a little strange at first but means it will be the right way up when it’s folded.
Once you’ve set everything up for your Greeting Card, it’s ready to hit the press. However, if you’re adding any Special Finishes to your final designs, there are a couple of extra steps to cross off your list first. (That’s right, keep scrolling!)
When setting up for White Ink or Foiling, you need to export a couple more versions of your artwork.
If you’re working on a sparkly range, then no doubt you will be using Digital Foiling in your design. Below we’ve created a handy video to show you how to set this up for print. We also have an additional video for White Ink printing available to view here.
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Got more than one Greeting Card design that you want to share? Save time (and money) with our version printing service.
Created so you can easily print all your ideas in one go, you can add up to 100 different designs to one order. It will require setting up your order slightly differently, so make sure to check out our full guide below.
Discover Version Printing
Once your designs are artwork-ready, it’s time to choose your Greeting Card options in our handy wizard. Once you click ‘Order now’ on our Greeting Card page, you’ll be presented with a variety of different product options. While it’s entirely up to you what you pick, we’re going to give you a quick rundown of the ordering process.
Firstly, choose the type of card you’ll be printing whether that’s Standard or Foiled and make sure your artwork is properly set up.
Then it’s time to choose your size and fold. For whichever you pick, double-check that your artwork has been set up to match it to avoid any issues when printing.
Now select which sides of your card you’ll be printing on. One side means that you only have designs on the front and reverse of your card whereas both sides means that you have artwork on one or both of the inner sides as well.
Now it’s time for our favourite part – selecting a paper! Whether you need some extra shimmer with a luxury stock like Pearl Oyster, want something thinner and tactile like Rives Shetland or something classic and easy to write on like TruCard, you’ll find the right fit.
Then select how many cards you want to print.
Top tip: If you’re Version Printing, make sure to double-check your numbers, as both the total number of cards and the number of each design will be displayed.
Lastly, it’s time to sort out your finishing touches. Choose whether you want your designs laminated and if so, which kind of lamination. Bare cards let you have a good feel of the paper, but will limit some of your other options as some stocks must be laminated in order to have round corners.
And once you’ve decided whether or not you want to add Envelopes or Cellophane Bags, it’s time to upload your artwork. Make sure to check all your product options in the sidebar.
Once you’ve continued, simply drag and drop your artwork or upload it. The preview below preview shows a full spread, but don’t worry, you can upload single separate pages too.
And that’s it – you’re all set for Greeting Card printing!
Whilst you brainstorm your next Greeting Card collection, check out this behind the scenes look at how our Greeting Cards are made.
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If you have artwork to share, producing art prints can be an ideal way to give someone a piece of your creativity, and it doesn’t have to be expensive to do so.. Prints can also be a good introduction for any artist looking to sell profitable art independently without delving into the world of art collectors and commercial galleries.
In this guide, we’ll start by exploring why making art prints can be a good thing for your business; the different types of print, the equipment needed, and most importantly, how you can make art prints yourself.
But first, what’s the difference between art prints and original versions of a piece?
An art print is a copy of an original piece, produced on a mass scale, offering budget friendly accessibility to the artwork. Its focus is purely on the enjoyment of the art itself.
Whereas an original is a one off piece, holding a higher monetary value, purchased with investment and profit in mind by galleries, museums and art collectors alike.
Not every artist sells prints, it all depends on the business focus of the individual. Some artists choose to only sell one or the other (originals or prints), with the most successful artists operating by selling both. This is because their original artwork holds so much value that reproducing lower budget print versions of the work can’t affect the value of the original. Even if there are 100 copies of the work, it is still a worthwhile investment for someone (with a lot of money) to buy their original work.
You may have your own, individual reasonings behind wanting to make art prints, but here are some recurring facts that you may want to consider if you’re sitting on the fence.
We get it, we’re artists too. Sometimes, giving away that painting that you spent months working on feels a little bit too painful. So what can you do when people want to own the artwork for themselves? Make prints of it.
By making art prints, you’re widening the accessibility that people have to your art. Some people may not have the funds to buy an original piece by an artist they love, so the print offers another way they can own a piece of their creativity whilst still supporting the artist who made it.
As we’ll explain below, the process of making prints isn’t too difficult to do, and can be a straightforward way of earning some income off the back of your practice.
Art prints are very popular.A surge in art prices and ‘Pinterest’ home inspiration has made us all the more inclined to decorate our plain white walls with pretty prints. If you’re a creative of any kind, you might want to jump on this trend while it’s hot.
A large target audience means a larger number of people who may be interested in buying an art print. The more people willing to buy your prints, the profitable your art business will be.
Art prints are a great art market product, but they also tend to do really well for online sops too. So if you already have a shop up and running or have always dreamt of a little Etsy shop, art prints may be a great step forward for you.
Giclée, which means a high quality print, are produced on a modern, large format inkjet printer using ‘archival’ ink and paper surface.
These are typically chromogenic prints, which are made in a lab using light sensitive photo paper and then chemically developed. They are most commonly used for photography type prints.
With most creative projects, there really aren’t any rules. But if you’re looking for recommendations, we’d say that because art prints are typically meant to mimic your original piece, so a Giclée art print should be matte and whereas photographic prints are usually glossy. This is because you would usually opt for photo paper for photographs and other specialised printing paper for art prints that typically do not carry any gloss properties.
The simple answer is yes. To make your prints, you will need to consider one of two ways, either at home yourself, or outsourcing using a print company.
But before this, you will need to digitise your artwork.
Digitising you artwork is the first step in turning your art into prints, no matter what printing method you decide to go with:
If the piece is too large to fit on the scanner in one go, try using one that has a flip lid so you can scan it in sections. Or you could also employ a photographer/print shop to scan the art for you instead. The most important thing is that the image quality is high, otherwise the art print will be doomed from the beginning, resulting in blurry and unclear prints.
In a photo editing program like Adobe Photoshop, edit, resize, fix the colours, brighten the whites, remove blemishes and crop off the edges of your digital art. This is also where you would connect the sections of scans for larger art pieces.
Make sure you’ve set the resolution, which for printing has a standard of 300dpi minimum. This is very important if you want your art to print with the best quality. Now is also a good time to consider the best size for your art print.
Now we’re onto the actual printing stage. This at home method may seem like the easier and cheaper alternative, but that does all depend on what equipment you already have/are willing to buy.
Unfortunately, if you want to achieve a high quality Giclee art print, your regular office printer isn’t going to do the job. Not to panic! If you’re set on doing this from home, we’ve made a list of suitable printers that can carry out any art print task.
Essentially, you’re looking for a large format, high quality printer that can take pigment based type of inks rather than the standard inkjet printers that take dye-based solutions.
Below is a collection of some printers that can carry out the job of making high quality prints. With prices varying depending on retailer, it’s best to do some research and shop around if you want a deal.
– Epson Expression ET-7750 EcoTank Printer – ★★★★☆ ( 4 From ExpertReviews)
– Expression Photo HD XP-15000 Printer – ★★★★★ ( 5 From ExpertReviews)
– Canon PIXMA PRO-200 Wireless Printer – ★★★★★ ( 5 From ExpertReviews)
– Epson SureColor P800 Inkjet Printer – ★★★★☆ ( 4 From PcMag)
– HP ENVY Photo 7855 All-in-One Printer – ★★★☆☆ ( 3.5 From PcMag)
– Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 – ★★★★☆ ( 4 From PcMag)
– HP DesignJet Studio Large Format Plotter Printer – ★★★★★ ( 5 From ITPro)
The quality of paper that you use for your art prints is one of the most important decisions you will make, in regards to the world of art prints. For this type of printing, you will want to opt for ‘archival paper’, e.g canvas, watercolour paper, specialist printing paper and more.
GSM simply stands for Grams per Square Metre, indicating the thickness and weight of the paper in question. When deciding, you will need to consider the maximum GSM that your printer allows (if printing from home). For art prints, you want a fairly sturdy paper, no less than 150 GSM. Even that weight could possibly be too light, as most archival type papers tend to fall between 200-300 gsm. It all depends on your printer and budget capabilities.
– [Image description and text: A ‘Making Art Prints At Home’ pros and cons list]
If the above methods would take up too much money and time as an artist, there’s always the choice of going through an external printing company, whether that’s a print-on-demand type of service or having them sent to you to then ship on to customers.
Print-on-demand companies allow you to upload a digital copy of your artwork, where the customer can then pick from a variety of products to have the work printed onto. Once the item is physically made, it is shipped out to your customer without you ever having to do anything. This is probably the easiest and most hassle free method of making art prints.
Getting started with these services are usually pretty easy (and free), take Printful for example. Their process is as simple as signing up, uploading your artwork, deciding on the markup price, making a sale and then the printing and delivery is taken care of for you.
So is print-on-demand services a foolproof way of making art prints? Not necessarily. If the agenda behind knowing how to make art prints is to earn more money, you might want to consider that many of these services don’t pay their artists a whole lot of profit. This means, if you want to make any kind of significant money from your art prints whilst also having competitive prices, you’ll have to sell a lot. It can be done, but it’s not guaranteed.
– Redbubble
– Gelato
– Society6
– Zazzle
– Printful
– ThePrintSpace (requires you to have an external online shop that it can connect to)
Another popular option is to get an external company to handle the printing of your art and leave the rest to you. This way, you can market the prints on your own accord, set the pricing (taking into consideration the cost of printing and shipping) and ship to your customers yourself. Although you’re not directly making the art print, you’re still able to have a relationship with your customers and personify the experience of them shopping with you. Plus, you get to check the quality of the prints before they are sent off!
– Printed.com, offering high quality fine art giclee prints that you can customise order quantity, paper type and the print finish. They also have other paper printing services available, like leaflets, business cards and calendars.
– mixam.co.uk, a printing service with an instant online quote service and fast delivery. They also have a lot of print options, including the choice of recycled paper.
– SimLab, offering fine art giclee prints printed on their archival Epson inkjet machines, with the option of bespoke sizing available.
– theprintspace.co.uk, claiming to be the UK’s first fine art printing carbon neutral service, they offer high quality prints that are recommended by professionals. They can also offer a print-on-demand service which will deliver the prints straight to your customer.
– Photobox, although it’s mainly advertised for photo printing, Photobox could also offer an option for your art print needs.
– [Image description and text: An ‘Outsourcing Art Prints” pros and cons list]
PROS
CONS
So you’ve made your art prints and decided how to ship them; your next task is to make sales. Luckily, you don’t need to have a big social following before launching your work (although your social media activity will always help). Selling art prints on marketplaces requires you to implement SEO into your listings to attract buyers who wouldn’t have seen your work otherwise. The
With everything you make and sell, you need to consider multiple aspects when pricing to make sure you’re left with a profit. Prints tend to fall on the cheaper, accessible end of the budget when it comes to art, so don’t be pricing your prints like they’re originals. This will also take away the value of originals if you’re not careful. Factor in your production costs, time, shipping and packaging. If you’re using print-on-demand services, it’s likely they’ll be taking a percentage of your profits so be aware of this too. If in doubt, follow some simple pricing formulas to get a rough idea of how much you should be charging for your art prints.
When making art prints and figuring out your way of selling them to the public, you may want to consider ways of protecting your work through copyright. Copyright in the UK is automatically applied when you create an original piece of something like: writing, art, illustration, photography, sound and music, software and so on. However, creating a piece of work doesn’t prevent someone from copying your art, so there are additional things you can do to protect your images.
For instance, you could try adding a copyright notice to the bottom of your webpage or photo, to remind people that the work is protected. There is also the option of disabling the right-click function so viewers cannot save the image to their device. To go one step further, you could also consider adding a watermark on the image. Sites like Redbubble place their own watermark over the preview of your print for you, so it cannot be copied and printed elsewhere.
However you decide to go about the making of your art prints, just make sure you take care and pride in how the finished result will look, especially when selling your artwork online. You want to art print to represent your creativity in the best way, and that is done through a high quality print. You will also want to use your time and money in the most efficient way, so prepare for a lot of research before diving into buying that expensive printer or 100’s of printed copies. With these tips, and things to consider we’re sure you’ll see your artwork hanging on the walls of many homes soon.
Also, don’t forget you can always share your art with us! Become the next Artist of The Month or tag us on Instagram @darkyellowdot.
Thank you for reading and if you found this article useful, share it around, that makes us happy. To receive more posts like this and updates, join our mailing list, everyone is welcome.
ExpertReviews.co.uk
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