Questions, answered.

Yes. The online designer lets you upload your image, add text to the back of the card (and inside if you like), and choose from a range of fonts, styles and colours. You see exactly how the card will print before you order.

Watch: designing your greeting card

Yes. If you already have a finished design, we print greeting cards, postcards, bookmarks and business cards straight from your print-ready PDF — made in Canva, Affinity Designer, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator or CorelDraw. Every size has a template with trim, bleed and safe area marked.

Cards from your artwork · Watch: cards from a print-ready PDF

Happily. Tell us the text you’d like on the back, upload your image at the end of the order, and we’ll lay the card out for you — and get in touch if anything needs a second look.

Let us design your card

As long as you’re logged in when you order, every card order is saved to your account automatically. Go to Your Orders & Designs, find the card, and reorder it as-is or open it in the designer to make changes first.

Ordered before you had an account, or while logged out? We’ve still got the design — ask us to add it to your account and you can reorder it here.

Yes. Quantity discounts are worked out per card stock, not per design, so you can mix sizes and designs freely on the same stock and still get the better price. Discounts start at 10 cards and step up at 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1,000 and on up to 5,000.

See prices and try the calculator

Just one card. The best way to check how your image will print is to design the card and order a single copy as a proof. If you’re happy, reorder as many as you like from your account.

Start with the short video tutorials below — signing in, choosing a size, adding your image and text, and saving a design for later. The whole thing takes a few minutes the first time.

JPG, PNG, TIFF, SVG, PDF, HEIC, WEBP, JPEG-XL and AVIF. Images should be RGB (not CMYK), ideally saved in the sRGB colour space.

• JPG — the usual choice for photographs; small files, good quality.
• PNG — graphics and logos, keeps transparency.
• TIFF — high-quality, uncompressed; favoured by photographers.
• SVG — vector logos and graphics that scale without losing quality.
• PDF — finished layouts from design software.
• HEIC, WEBP, JPEG-XL, AVIF — newer formats from phones and the web; all accepted.

Watch: adding an image to your card

Order one. With a minimum order of a single card, the surest test is to design the card with your photo and order a proof. Every card we print is kept in your account, so if it looks right you can reorder straight away.

Use Save in the designer and the card is kept in your account to finish another time. It’s also handy for making a template — your details and logo set up once, ready for a whole range of new designs.

Watch: saving your card design

You don’t need much. The card designer lets you scale, crop and position your image on the card, so most photos need no editing at all. For anything more — straightening, colour, retouching — use whatever you already have: Photos on a Mac or iPhone, Photos on Windows, or a free app such as Canva. Save as a JPG or PNG and upload that.

Yes. Cards made in the online designer carry two small lines on the back by default: “Printed in the UK on board from fully sustainable forests” and “Redcliffe Imaging Ltd • www.custom-printed-cards.co.uk”. Tick Remove Redcliffe Branding and the whole text is removed. It’s a one-off £2.40 per design, and once it’s gone it’s gone for good — every reorder of that design stays brand-free with nothing more to pay.

Cards you design yourself in Canva, Affinity, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator or CorelDraw and send us as a print-ready PDF never carry the credit.

On a PC, hold Alt and type 0169 on the numeric keypad. On a Mac, press Option + G.

Three, all premium weights: Smooth White 300gsm (our pick for photography), Textured White Matt 324gsm (our pick for art and illustration) and Glossy White 300gsm for punchy, saturated colour.

Compare the three stocks · Feel them first with the Studio Kit

Ten: white, ivory, brown kraft, crimson, gold, silver, purple, lavender, spring green and spring pink. Not every colour is stocked in every size — the order form shows what’s available for yours.

See the colours and order extras

Two kinds of self-seal sleeve: polypropylene, the crystal-clear sleeve most card makers use, and biodegradable, made with NATIVIA® bio-based film — compostable, biodegradable and recyclable. There are also plastic-free card catchers, a sticker that holds card and envelope together with no sleeve at all.

Sleeves & card catchers

Yes. Konica Minolta, who make our digital press, have signed a vegan declaration confirming that no animal products, by-products or derivatives are used in the toner and consumables they supply to us, and our envelope supplier confirms all glues are plant-based.

Vegan cards: what the declaration covers

Yes — the Studio Kit, £12 with free UK delivery: printed cards on all three stocks, postcards, bookmarks, business cards, envelopes and sleeves, plus twenty fine art papers and a colour calibration print.

Of course. Extras can be added to any card order as you go, or ordered on their own from the envelopes & extras page.

Orders are usually printed, checked and packed within 1–5 working days. Smaller orders go by Royal Mail first class; larger ones by DPD tracked courier. If an order is urgent, tell us when you place it and we’ll do our best to meet your date.

Delivery options · Track an order

Let us know straight away and we’ll replace or refund the damaged cards. A couple of photos of the cards and the packaging helps us claim from the carrier, so please take some before you get in touch.

Contact us

A 30-day, 100% money-back guarantee. We take real pride in the cards we print, so if you’re not delighted with an order, tell us and we’ll put it right.

Our guarantee · Terms & conditions

Two ways. The easy one: send us the original and we’ll scan it for you — flat artwork up to A3, £20 for the first scan and £10 for each extra piece, file emailed and the original posted back. See artwork scanning for cards.

Or photograph it yourself. Most modern cameras and phones will take a good enough photo if you follow a few rules:

• Light. Bright, soft, even light — natural daylight on an overcast day is ideal, outdoors or next to a big window. It avoids glare and hard shadows. Turn the flash off, and turn room lights off too: artificial light gives a colour cast.
• Keep the camera still. A tripod is best (a perfectly good one costs under £20); failing that, rest the camera on something solid and use the self-timer so pressing the button doesn’t shake it.
• Square it up. Plain background, artwork parallel to the lens — if the work has to lean to stand, tilt the camera to match. Get close enough to fill the frame, and zoom in a touch to avoid the slight wide-angle distortion many cameras have at their widest.
• Best quality settings. Highest image-quality setting, ISO 100 or 200 (or just leave it on Auto). If a piece is large or important, a professional photographer with a studio camera is worth it — ask for a RAW file.
• Check it. Crop and straighten in any photo editor — the one built into your phone or computer is fine — and check it’s sharp at full size.

Not sure it’s good enough? The minimum order is one card, so order a single card as a proof. We archive every card we print, so once you’re happy you can reorder from your account.

Screens glow; paper doesn’t. Most screens can also show a wider range of colour than any print can reach — bright reds and deep blues in particular often print less saturated than they look on screen, because they’re outside what a printing press can reproduce. If you’ve spent time editing an image and want it reproduced accurately, save it in the sRGB colour space and give your screen the quick checks below.

Too dark or too light? In the middle square you should just be able to make out a dark grey oval on the black background. If you can’t, your screen is set too dark; if it’s obvious, too light.

Colours close to aim? On the greyscale you should see every step from 0 (pure white) to 100 (pure black), with steps 95 to 100 only just distinguishable. The red–green–blue spectrum should be a smooth blend — if you can see banding, your display isn’t set to show millions of colours.

Finally, a quick visual check on the skin tones and contrast in the calibration print below — do they look natural to you?

If those look right, what you see on screen will be reasonably close to what we print. Want to be certain? Order one card as a proof before a bigger run.

Only if you plan to sell through retail chains or larger shops, which usually require an EAN-13 barcode (the standard 13-digit one) on the back. Independent shops, galleries and fairs generally don’t.

How they work. The number lets a retailer put your card on their stock system, charge the right price at the till and reorder when stock runs low. Every EAN-13 number is unique and yours alone to use, so you have to buy them. Small publishers can buy numbers singly or in fives from independent suppliers for a one-off payment — try Barcode Bird or Get A Barcode; the more you buy, the cheaper each is. Larger publishers register with GS1 UK, which allocates a company prefix and a block of 1,000 numbers for an annual fee.

Printing it on the card. A few things to get right:

• The barcode area should be white (or very pale) and the surface smooth — textured stock can affect scanning.
• Bars in black or a cold colour (dark blue, green, violet) — these read as black under a red scanner light. Avoid red, orange and yellow bars.
• Print at 100% size where you can; 80% is the smallest an EAN-13 is allowed.
• Leave clear space around it on the back of the card.

Would a barcode spoil the card? Print it on a self-adhesive label and stick that to the outside of the clear sleeve instead — the label can carry “Blank inside” and your details too.

The British send more cards per person than any other nation, so there’s a real market. Our guide to selling your greeting cards covers the basics in four short parts:

• Why cards work as marketing — one of the most affordable ways to share your work and build an income.
• Where to sell — fairs, shops, galleries, your own website, and the trade body and books worth knowing.
• Email marketing — simple, cheap, and a list that’s yours to keep.
• Instagram & Facebook — word of mouth between friends, at scale.