This is one of the most common questions I get regarding greeting card illustration. Fortunately the answer is an easy one… you can illustrate for greeting cards in almost any size! Card companies tend to vary their card dimensions between card lines so as long as you keep in mind these guidelines, there is a lot of flexibility as to what size you can illustrate your greeting card designs to :

• • Whatever size the publisher tells you : keep it simple, if you’ve been given a size to work with, stick with it.
• • Allow for bleed : paint/draw extra illustration around your main design (0.5 - 1 inch) to allow for some shifting for where the bleed will be trimmed off.
• • Use portrait format : Landscape format cards don’t sell as well as A) they don’t display well on card racks, and B) they don’t tend to sit well on a table. The main times landscape illustrations are used in greeting cards are when they are used on z-fold or u-fold designs.
• • Make it easy to scan : Illustrating larger than the size needed is always preferable. However, if your original artwork is small enough to fit on a scanning bed (i.e. 8.5 x 11 inches or smaller), it will save whoever is digitizing your artwork the trouble of either photographing your work or scanning it in pieces and stitching it together in Photoshop.

Other than those points to consider, you can illustrate to any size you’d like. You can find more tips on illustrating for greeting cards here.