Meet The Designers: Independent Designers

Toni’s main inspiration is her everyday life, creating relatable and ‘punny’ designs to make people giggle. She has had a passion for creativity for as long as she can remember and ventured into greetings card design whilst on a work placement during her Design for Industry course at Northumbria University. Her happy places are either at a festival partying in a crazy colourful outfit or having a quiet night in playing video games.

Dachshund obsessed caffiend, Dannyboy was born with a pencil in hand, and has a particular penchant for 60’s era cartoons & Tiramisu. In his spare time, he enjoys going for long bike rides and playing Backgammon with his Dachshund Bob, who wins most of the time.

The Queer Store is an online shop that aims to celebrate pop and queer/LGBTQIA+ culture through fan art illustrations by Paige Nicholas. As a family business, Paige and their wife work together to bring you well-designed and professionally manufactured greeting cards, creating every card with love and genuine admiration and passion for the people(s) we portrait, from drag queens to pop culture icons.

Hello! I’m Aimee, a freelance illustrator living in a plant-filled house in Oxfordshire with my family and our fluffy-tailed cat, Peggy. I started designing greetings cards in the first lockdown to send a smile to my friends and now I just can’t stop! Pun-derful messages, quirky humour and cute characters are my thing. My cards are bright, joyful and hand-drawn; I hope you love them as much as I love making them!

Mama to 1 and fuelled by bottomless cups of coffee, Sarah creates her designs from her retail shop and studio based on a working farm in the heart of the Teme Valley, Worcestershire. Sarah loves designing cute and playful designs and is influenced by trending topics and her love of reality TV! Sarah previously worked as a graphic designer in the TV industry. Since setting up her own business in 2015, she’s never looked back and enjoys creating cards that inspire imaginations and bring smiles and positivity to people’s day.

Sometimes accused of making “dad jokes”, her silly sense of humour plays a big role in influencing designs, along with a love of mid-century modern style, and a muted bright colour palette. Sarah has always loved to draw, paint or doodle on any surface available to her, but it was after her second maternity leave, that the creative calling really took hold and propelled her to work hard towards turning her hobby into an illustration career. She lives in London with her husband and two girls.

Hi! I’m Rosie. I am a freelance illustrator living and working in the Devon seaside town of Exmouth. I cannot believe that I get to draw a write silly things for my job, it’s the DREAM!! I feel privileged to be making things that other people choose to send to friends and family. What a delight to bring other people a moment of joyful nonsense and connection.

After going through 6 gruelling rounds of IVF to have our daughter, I was then made redundant in my job. So, I started designing greeting cards as a way to keep myself busy. I started initially just designing cards for those going through fertility treatment, as I really wanted to put our experience into something positive! Fast forward 2 years and I’m now designing cards and apparel for anything and everything, and my inspiration comes mainly from my own experiences and circumstances… I basically design things I love in the hope that someone else does too!

Hi, I’m Sophie, Mum of one (two if you include my noisy miniature schnauzer), based in Somerset and owner of Pack a Punch Designs. I started designing cards 5 years ago when I was finding my admin job a bit rubbish. I’ve always had a dark sense of humour and once I started thinking of captions to put on cards, I couldn’t stop. I have over 400 original designs to my name based around themes such as sibling rivalry, autocorrect fails, tv shows and my love for the middle aisle of Aldi. I have the best job in the world!