A Wicked Good Design: Every Card Has the Power to Give
- Shannon Cyr
- Jul 23
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 27
Creating a donation option for every card in the Mainely Cards catalog required more than good intentions. It required a new way of thinking about design, production, and growth.
Designing a Sustainable Donation Model
With the Mainely Cards launch catalog nearly complete, my attention shifted from designing cards to designing how people would share them. That meant making decisions about pricing, packaging, and purchase options.
One of the biggest decisions was finalizing our "buy one, donate one" purchase option. Every purchase creates two handcrafted greeting cards: one for the customer and one for Wicked Good Cards, a Maine-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that places handmade cards in hospice centers, hospitals, shelters, and other care communities throughout Southern Maine.
The decision carried more weight than most. Michael and I created Mainely Cards as a sustainable funding model for Wicked Good Cards, so the donation option had to be practical for customers, sustainable for the studio, and capable of supporting long-term growth.
The Production Time Challenge
As we prepared for launch, I began tracking how long it actually took to handcraft each greeting card. Until then, I figured each one took about five minutes to build. The data quickly proved otherwise. Even our simplest cards required twenty to thirty minutes to complete, while some of the more intricate designs took nearly an hour. Most fell somewhere in between.
Those numbers changed how I looked at the donation option. Every purchase doubled the production time from the very beginning. What had once felt like a straightforward idea became a much bigger operational question. For the first time, I wasn't sure our original approach could scale alongside the studio we were building.
A Blunt Solution
As I separated each design in the catalog by production time, the idea came: cards with complicated designs would be available for individual purchase only, and less complex cards would include a donation purchase option. It seemed like the best of both worlds. The donation option would continue supporting Wicked Good Cards, and the more time-intensive designs would remain part of the catalog without creating an unsustainable production burden.
Convinced I had solved the problem, I immediately started updating the shop product pages. One by one, I removed the donation option from some of the most time-intensive cards. After half a dozen updates, I stopped. I looked at the stripped-down product pages, and felt unsettled.
From the beginning, the vision has always been to give everyone the opportunity to donate a handcrafted greeting card to Wicked Good Cards. Every product page I changed moved us farther away from that mission. I closed the product pages without making another change.
To solve this problem, I needed a solution that preserved the original vision. There had to be another way.
Back to the Drawing Board
I considered the Balloons card I recently designed. It was remarkable versatile, and I was playing with the idea of using it as a single donation card. Then it occurred to me -
What if every collection used a single card design for donations?
The idea had potential so I set out to understand why the Balloons card worked as a single donation card before building anything new.
A Closer Look at the Balloons Card
I placed the card in front of me, opened a notebook, and started asking why the Balloons card worked so well as a donation card.
The first thing I asked before going any further was whether the Balloons card could represent the entire Celebrate collection. If someone looked at the Balloons card, would they understand what the Celebrate collection was all about? The answer was yes.
The next thing I noticed was the card's universal appeal. It's appropriate for a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and beliefs. A grandparent could send it to a grandchild. A coworker could send it to a colleague. A volunteer could choose it for someone they have never met. Nothing about the artwork limits who can give or receive the card.
I also realized the balloons weren't limited to birthdays. The card could naturally fit a graduation, retirement, promotion, new home, recovery, and many other celebrations.
That got me thinking about color palettes. While designing the Balloons card, I experimented with different papers for the balloons before landing on the no-shed glitter. Those design explorations became some of the first Balloon cards donated to Wicked Good Cards. Those early donations are documented in the Giving Gallery.
Next, I considered the construction of the Balloons card. The balloon strings may look delicate, but they're surprisingly sturdy. They're cut from thick black matte cardstock and secured with professional adhesive. I landed on no-shed glitter paper because it's surprisingly durable, making it ideal for repeated handling.
Finally, my thoughts returned to the production time challenge. A donated card has to remain practical to handcraft as donation volume grows. If a design only works at small volumes, it isn't a sustainable solution. Would the Balloons card still be practical if donation volume increased? Yes. It struck a good balance between craftsmanship and production time, and I could make it consistently as donated card volume grew.
By the time I finished my analysis, I wasn't looking at the Balloons card anymore. I was looking at the characteristics of a successful donated card. I named it the Wicked Good Design Framework.
Wicked Good Design Framework
 | Collection Fit The design should naturally represent the personality and purpose of its collection. |
 | Universal Appeal The design should feel appropriate for people across a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and beliefs. |
 | Broad Occasion The design should feel appropriate for many different moments, allowing a single card to naturally support a wide variety of messages. |
 | Creative Flexibility The design should remain visually balanced and recognizable across different paper colors, finishes, and material choices. |
 | Durable Construction The design should be durable enough to withstand normal handling while maintaining its dimensional craftsmanship. |
 | Supports Growth The design should remain practical to handcraft consistently as donation volume grows over time. |
Putting the Framework to the Test
With the framework complete, it was time to see whether it actually worked. I returned to the catalog and evaluated each card in every Mainely Cards collection.
Celebrate
The Celebrate collection was the easiest place to start. The Balloons card inspired the framework, so it wasn't surprising it satisfied all six characteristics. It became the Wicked Good Design for the collection.
Wicked Good Design: Wicked Good Balloons card
Holiday
Every design in the Holiday collection is created for a specific holiday or season, so no one single card can meet the framework's Broad Occasion criterion.
Wicked Good Design: None
Just Because
The Just Because collection took the longest to evaluate. A few designs were eliminated quickly because they were tied to a specific message, mood, or theme. Other cards simply didn't capture the collection as a whole.
The Monarch Butterfly was the only design that satisfied five of the six criteria. It fell short on the Creative Flexibility criterion because the design relies on a specific color palette that can't be modified. I briefly considered abandoning the Creative Flexibility criterion, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized this criterion is needed.
To be truly wicked good, a design has to remain recognizable across different paper colors and materials. That flexibility will allow us to create variety, use materials efficiently, and continue adapting the design as donation volume grows.
The Monarch Butterfly wasn't the answer, but it became the inspiration for a new design. I created a new butterfly design that satisfied the Creative Flexibility criterion while preserving the other five.
Wicked Good Design: Wicked Good Butterfly card
Maine
The Maine collection celebrates the many iconic symbols associated with our state identity. Lobsters, lighthouses, blueberries, and pine trees each represent a different part of the state's identity. No single design could naturally stand in for the entire collection.
Wicked Good Design: None
Pun Intended
Each card in the Pun Intended collection depends on the relationship between the artwork and wordplay. Each design is built around its own joke, so no single card could naturally represent the entire collection.
Wicked Good Design: None
Sympathy
The Sympathy collection exists to help people express compassion and offer support during difficult moments. Because those messages are so personal, every Sympathy card remains available through Made to Give, allowing people to donate the design that best reflects the message they want to share.
Wicked Good Design: None
Thank You
The Thank You collection presented a different challenge. Unlike the rest of the catalog, it was originally designed as boxed sets of four and eight cards, not individual cards. That meant the question wasn't whether a single design could represent the collection. It was how Made to Give should work with a boxed set.
I explored ideas like donating a single card with every box or creating a standard donated Thank You set. The more I thought through those options, the more complicated it became, moving us farther away from the simple, consistent experience the donation option was meant to offer.
Instead of trying to make the boxed sets fit the donation model, I changed the product offering and introduced individual A2 versions of every Thank You card, each with a Made to Give purchase option. So, now the Thank You card collection offers single cards and boxed sets.
As I worked through each collection, I realized there wasn't a single solution that would work for every product. Some collections needed a Wicked Good Design, and others were better served by keeping every design available or introducing a new product offering. The framework gave me a consistent way to make those decisions without losing sight of the original vision.
From the beginning, the vision has been to give everyone the opportunity to donate a handcrafted greeting card to Wicked Good Cards. Achieving that vision required more than good intentions. The donation option also had to be practical for customers, sustainable for the studio, and capable of supporting long-term growth. The Wicked Good Design Framework made those goals work together.
Every Card Has the Power to Give
Today, every card in the Mainely Cards catalog has the power to donate a handcrafted greeting card to Wicked Good Cards. That was the vision from the beginning, and the Wicked Good Design Framework made it possible.
If you'd like to learn more about how our "buy one, donate one" purchase option works, explore the Made to Give page to browse donated cards and find answers to frequently asked questions.
If you're ready to find a handcrafted greeting card to send, explore the Mainely Cards Shop. Every card has the power to give.
Mainely Yours,
Shannon
