How to Design Your Own Birthday Card

Whether you want to design a personalized birthday card for your grandmother, a humorous birthday card for a new friend or even a card for your newborn that will become a cherished keepsake, the process for creating a unique design for a birthday card can be both simple and enjoyable. The following are points you should consider when creating a memorable birthday card sure to delight the card's recipient on their special day.

Instructions

1. Decide on the theme for your birthday card design. If your card is to be humorous, then brainstorm ideas that will make the card's recipient laugh. On the other hand, if your card is meant to be reflective or more serious in tone, think about what type of image will best match the message you want to convey. For example, if the individual the birthday card is intended for enjoys sailing, then an image of a sail boat with a message that reads " Here's wishing you many more years of smooth sailing under a sunny sky, Happy Birthday" might be an appropriate blending of image and message that is also personalized to that person.

2. Utilize a quality graphics program like Photoshop to create your card's graphics.
   Begin by opening a new document in your graphics program. Preset the size you want your card to be allowing for a boarder. Next, set the resolution to at least 200 pixels for quality printing. Photoshop allows you to make various changes within separate layers without altering elements on other layers.

3. Add text on one layer then add graphics or a photo to another and to another a boarder or frame. Within each layer, you can change colors, fonts styles and alter your image by choosing from a range of filters and other effects such as lightening, hue and saturation variations and more. Remember that there are numerous free tutorials online that can teach you how to use Photoshop. If you prefer instead to use a program more user friendly, Microsoft's paint program can allow you to create your card. This is also a wonderful program for children to use to draw and paint an image that can become the perfect card for a parent or loved one.

4. Purchase card stock paper at most office supply stores and some retail outlets like Wal-Mart and print your birthday card from your home computer or take you completed card design on CD to a professional printer for printing. Check with your printer to determine which format they prefer you save your image in, such as jpeg or gif format.

References

• Photoshop Digest