Senior Greeting Card & Stationery Designer – Premium Commercial Collection

We are an established greeting-card and small-gift business based in the UK. We sell primarily through Amazon UK and design, print, finish, pack and fulfil thousands of greeting-card SKUs in-house. We perform particularly strongly in humour-led categories. We are now investing in more traditional, sentimental and premium greeting-card categories, where established publishers currently have a stronger presence. We are looking for an exceptional senior greeting-card or stationery designer to help create an initial collection of approximately 10–15 commercially strong designs. This is not a volume-generation assignment. For this collection, exceptional design quality, commercial appeal and originality matter considerably more than speed or quantity. ## Creative approach We welcome conventional digital design, original illustration, AI-assisted workflows or a thoughtful combination of these methods. We care primarily about the quality and originality of the finished product. We already create AI-generated greeting cards internally, so we are not looking for someone who simply produces raw generations. Any AI-assisted work must be professionally developed through strong concept selection, editing, compositing, typography, retouching and print preparation. The successful designer should be capable of working across several genuinely different visual directions rather than applying one recognisable style to every brief. Potential categories include: * Birthday and milestone birthday * Mum, Dad and other relations * Get well, operation and recovery * Wedding and anniversary * Premium floral and decorative cards * Cute character-led cards * Recipient and hobby-specific cards Relevant visual approaches could include: * Traditional sentimental illustration * Watercolour and hand-drawn artwork * Mixed-media and collage * Premium floral compositions * Cute commercial characters * Decorative and typography-led designs * Lifestyle and hobby-based illustrated scenes * Contemporary premium design Competitor examples will be supplied to demonstrate the target customer, commercial standard and current Amazon market. These are market references only. We do not want them copied, traced or closely reproduced. ## What we need from you You will receive a written brief for each card, including: * Occasion or recipient * Required wording * Card dimensions * Target customer * Relevant market context * Competitor examples where appropriate * Potential special-finish opportunities You will be responsible for developing original visual concepts and turning the selected directions into polished, commercially viable greeting-card fronts. Final designs must: * Have a strong and immediately understandable commercial concept * Stand out in Amazon search results * Remain effective at small thumbnail size * Use professional typography and clear visual hierarchy * Be polished and free from obvious technical or artistic defects * Be suitable for professional printing * Be original and legally suitable for commercial product use * Avoid third-party characters, brands, trademarks and recognisable copyrighted properties * Avoid tracing, reproducing or closely imitating competitor designs * Use appropriately licensed fonts, graphics and external assets If AI is used, please disclose the principal tools involved. Any stock imagery, fonts or third-party assets must also be identified and appropriately licensed for commercial product use. ## Special finishes Some designs may receive gold foil, spot UV, embossing or other premium finishes. Experience designing for these finishes is desirable but not essential. Proposed finish elements must be capable of being isolated cleanly within the layered artwork. Final technical prepress separations may be handled by a separate specialist. Special finishes should support the design rather than be used to compensate for an otherwise ordinary concept. ## Required final files For each completed design, we will require: * High-resolution artwork at the dimensions supplied * Minimum 300 dpi at final print size * Correct bleed and safe area * Layered PSD, PSB, AI or equivalent editable source file * Editable or clearly separated typography * Background, main illustration and important decorative elements separated where reasonably possible * Potential foil or special-finish elements isolated on separate layers * Fonts outlined or clearly identified with appropriate commercial licensing * Flattened high-resolution proof file * Clean artwork without watermarks, generation artefacts or accidental marks ## Portfolio requirements Please do not submit only a general portfolio link. Your proposal should include 6–10 carefully selected examples relevant to this project, ideally demonstrating: * Complete commercial designs rather than standalone artwork * At least three meaningfully different visual styles * Strong combinations of illustration and typography * Greeting-card, stationery, giftware, publishing or packaging work * A coordinated collection or product range * Artwork developed for professional printing * Special-finish design work, if applicable * Substantial editing or compositing, if AI-assisted For the most relevant examples, briefly explain: * The original brief or intended product * Your exact contribution * Whether the project was real commercial work or a personal concept * Which tools and production methods you used * Which elements, if any, were AI-generated * Which elements you designed, illustrated or edited manually Portfolios consisting mainly of raw AI images, fantasy portraits, cinematic scenes, social-media graphics or unrelated branding work will not demonstrate suitability unless they also contain strong commercial print design. All submitted portfolio examples must be your own work. Reference or inspiration images must be clearly labelled and should not be presented as portfolio work. ## Payment and project structure This will be a fixed-price project completed through funded Upwork milestones. We are not requesting unpaid sample work. ### Milestone 1: Paid three-design trial The selected freelancer will receive three different greeting-card briefs intended to test commercial judgment, originality and stylistic flexibility. For each brief, we expect: * Two meaningfully different initial concept directions * Development of the agreed direction into one finished card design * Up to two reasonable revision rounds * Delivery of the final high-resolution and layered source files Payment will be released when the agreed concepts, revisions and final files have been supplied in accordance with the brief. Payment will not depend on subsequent Amazon sales performance. ### Milestone 2: Remaining collection If the trial is successful, we expect to commission approximately 7–12 additional finished designs. These may be divided into smaller funded milestones, normally covering three or four cards per batch. Deliverables, deadlines and payment will be agreed before each milestone begins. The agreed fixed price should include: * Concept development * Finished card artwork * Up to two reasonable revision rounds * High-resolution final artwork * Layered editable source files A completely new direction requested after approval, additional versions outside the original brief or revisions beyond the agreed scope will be discussed and priced separately. Please include: * Your proposed fixed price for the three-design trial * Your normal fixed price per finished design or batch * Your expected trial turnaround time * Your availability for the remaining collection We are not looking for the lowest bid. We are looking for someone whose commercial judgment and finished work are materially better than the designs we can already produce internally. There is potential for regular ongoing work if the initial collection and working relationship are successful.