Hello creators! If you’re here, you’ve probably set up your profile, and have your design ready to upload. There are a few things you need to do when uploading, so here’s the step-by-step.
Step 1: Upload design
Firstly, in the Creator Dashboard click Upload Design. Card designs can only be uploaded from a computer in JPEG or PNG format. If you’re uploading a photo card, the process is slightly different and our tutorial is here.
Design requirements
Please upload image files which are at least 2506 x 1772 pixels, so we can print them at a high quality (300 DPI, dots per inch) in our A5 and A4 formats. The largest image size we accept is 5012 x 3544 pixels. We have some templates available for you to get started for Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, these can be downloaded on the template page. You only need to upload the design for the front of the card, as the back of the card is generated by us.
Ensure your design is clear and that your colour palette is CMYK friendly. We accept image files in both RGB (display colour format) and CMYK (print colour format – think ink cartridges!).
Step 2: Amending the bleed
Once your design has been uploaded into the frame, you’ll need to adjust the crop. Pull the cropping mask out to fit your design, and check that the design allows for the bleed.
The bleed is the part of your design which gets cut off when it is printed. Whilst we display your design in its full format on the site and apps, when the design is printed there is a small margin which gets trimmed.
Step 3: Setting visibility
Once your design is uploaded and fits, you’ll have the option of clicking Public or Private visibility. Public is if you’re looking to upload a design to sell to customers. Private designs are for designs which you want to buy yourself, but not make available for public sale on the site.
Step 4: Adding a card title
You’ll need to add a card title for your design. This will help people find your card and increase your discoverability on the thortful website and search engines. Try to make it unique and catchy. We ask for it to include the following:
- The occasion e.g. birthday, anniversary, thank you
- The style e.g. funny, cute, classic
- The recipient e.g. for mum, for friend if relevant
- Any unique elements or key messages
- This should be a maximum of 80 characters.
A great example by Mrs Best Paper Co: Cute Mother’s Day Card – Mum – Pun – Mum Thanks For Raisin’ Me
Step 5: Adding a card description
This will sit under your design and title on the website, to give our customers more information about your design. This should be a maximum of 200 characters. A great example by Custom Card Co Shop:
Versatile card that could be used for birthdays, Mother’s Day or as a general greetings card. Let someone special know how much they mean to you with pretty floral pun!
Step 6: Writing out the card text
This is for you to add the exact text displayed on your design. This makes it easier for customers to find your card when they search on our site and app.
Step 7: Select the occasion, style and theme
Next, you’ll need to select the occasion, style and theme of your design. The Send A Smile occasion is for those cards that are used as a ‘pick me up’ for someone (we introduced this during lockdown), and does not need to be selected alongside another occasion.
Step 8: Add the tags
It’s like a game of ‘say what you see’. Type in 3 great keywords that will help customers discover your card. If it’s on the card, you can tag it! We normally look for recipient, theme or name of the person/animal/object in the design if applicable.
No plurals please i.e. ‘dog’ and ‘dogs’ and ensure your tags are never more than two words. Remember that it is not necessary to add the tags ‘birthday’ or ‘card’ or your creator name, as your designs entered into the catalogue will be searchable under these regardless. Please rest assured the tags on your design will be optimised by our moderation team to ensure they appear in the relevant searches.
Step 9: Selecting card exclusivity
We pride ourselves on the fact that 80% of our top selling cards can’t be found on our competitors’ sites. You have the option of selecting for your card to be exclusive to thortful or not. Cards marked as being exclusive are prioritised for marketing campaigns. If the imagery, caption or content is the same or substantially similar to a design sold by our online competitors, then it cannot be classed as exclusive. This does not currently include your own website or a shop on Etsy or Not On The Highstreet.
Once all of the above has been completed, you can click the big orange Upload Card button… and job done! Your design will then go into the moderation queue. Do remember you have limited slots – more information on that can be found here.
We hope this helps, if you have any issues along the way, please email [email protected].
Happy uploading!
Team thortful
