Design Guide
How to write and lay out a card people keep
The photo gets attention. The words are what someone reads twice. This page covers choosing a design, writing a name and title that fit, picking statistics that mean something, writing a short biography, and choosing an accent colour.
Choosing a design for the subject
Start with who the card is for, not with which design looks best on screen.
- Youth Athlete, $42. A player in kit, with a position and a season. Works for any sport, and for anything with a squad and a season behind it.
- Pet Legend, $42. Dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, reptiles. The statistic fields are built for personality rather than performance.
- Family MVP, $42. A household, a couple, a set of siblings, a grandparent. Good for a group photo or a single portrait with family details on the back.
- Celebration Edition, $46. Birthdays, graduations, retirements, new jobs, new homes, anniversaries. The layout gives the date and the occasion more weight.
- Premium Encased, $42. A clean design that suits any subject where you want the card itself to be the object.
- Signature Holographic, $59. The most decorative option. Best with a strong, simple photo, because a busy image and a busy finish fight each other.
If two designs seem to fit, pick by tone. A retiring coach probably wants Celebration Edition rather than Youth Athlete, even though the sport connection is there.
Ordering a set of cards for a team, a class or a family? Keep the same design across all of them. Consistency is what makes a set look deliberate. Volume pricing takes 12% off at two cards, 22% at five and 30% at ten.
Writing a name and a title that fit
The name is the largest text on the card. Short names sit at full size and look best. Long names have to shrink to fit, which weakens the front of the card.
Some ways to keep it short.
- Use the name people actually use. Ellie beats Eleanor if nobody says Eleanor.
- Use a first name and an initial rather than a long double-barrelled surname.
- Put the full formal name on the back in the biography if it matters.
- For pets, drop the honorifics. Duchess Matilda of Barkington is a funny thing to say and a hard thing to read at card size.
The title is the line under the name. It answers the question, what is this card about. Keep it to a few words.
- Sport. A position and a team, or a position and a year. Left Back, Under 12s. Point Guard, 2026.
- Pets. A role rather than a species. Chief Sock Thief. Sofa Defender. Retired Racer.
- Family. A relationship or a role. Team Captain, Dad. Household Referee.
- Celebration. The occasion and the year. Class of 2026. Forty Years, One Company.
Avoid titles that only make sense to one person unless the card is for that one person. Avoid stacking three ideas into one line.
Picking statistics that mean something
The statistic block is the part people read closely. The mistake is filling it with numbers nobody remembers. The fix is choosing figures that carry a story.
For a young athlete, a season total is more interesting than a career total, and an unusual figure is more interesting than an obvious one. Goals is fine. Assists, clean sheets, matches played through an injury, distance covered, personal best time, all of those say more.
For a pet, mix facts and character. Breed, age, weight, rescue date, favourite walk, worst habit, number of shoes destroyed. The joke ones work because the real ones sit next to them.
For a family card, pick figures that date the card in a good way. Year, city, years together, number in the household, holidays taken, name of the car.
For a celebration card, use the milestone itself. Years of service, date of graduation, subject studied, age reached, the year everything started.
Three rules that apply to all of them.
- Be accurate. A wrong number is the thing the recipient will spot first.
- Label clearly. Games Played reads better than GP to someone outside the sport.
- Vary the shape. All small numbers or all large numbers makes the block look flat.
Writing a good short biography
You have a small space, so aim for two or three sentences and roughly forty to sixty words. Write it out longer first, then cut.
A structure that works: one line of fact, one line of character, one line that lands.
Example shape for a young player. Joined the club at seven and has not missed a season since. Plays left back, argues every offside call, first to help pack the kit away. Twenty-six appearances in 2026.
Example shape for a pet. Adopted in 2022 from a shelter two towns over. Sleeps eleven hours a day and still needs a nap after lunch. Answers to his name about half the time.
Things to avoid. Do not write it in the third person if it reads stiff, and do not write it in the first person if the card is a surprise gift. Do not list the same facts already in the statistics block. Do not try to be funny in every line, because one good line lands harder than four.
Read it aloud before you submit. If you run out of breath, cut a sentence.
Choosing an accent colour
The accent colour runs through the name plate, the rules and the statistic block. It has one job, which is to tie the design to the photo.
- Pull it from the photo. A kit colour, a jacket, a collar, a wall behind the subject. Colour that already exists in the image looks intentional.
- Team colours work. Use the club colours the player wears, as long as you are not adding a logo or mark you do not have permission to use.
- Contrast beats matching. If the photo is mostly green grass, a warm accent lifts it. If the photo is warm and sunlit, a cooler accent gives the text somewhere to sit.
- Go darker for text weight. Pale yellows and pale greys read poorly against a light layout. A deeper version of the same colour keeps the character and stays legible.
- One colour, not three. The photo brings the variety. The accent brings the order.
If you are making a set, use one accent colour across the whole set, or one per person with the same level of saturation. Mixing a pastel with a neon in the same set makes the set look unfinished.
Check it in the preview
The preview shows the front and the back with your text in place. Read every field out loud, including the numbers. Check name spellings against something written down rather than from memory. Personalised goods cannot be cancelled once production starts, so the preview is the last easy place to fix a mistake.
Manufacturing defects and print errors are remade or refunded within 30 days of delivery. A typo you approved is not a print error, so it pays to slow down for a minute.
Stuck on the wording? Send us what you have at info@stampora.us and we will tell you what we would cut.