Gift Card Packaging: Unique Designs to Inspire Your Creativity | 3D Designing

When presenting a special gift to a loved one, you’d never simply plop it down in front of them unwrapped. At best, they’d find it rude, and at worst, they’d take it as a personal insult. In the same way, companies and organizations who present gifts to their clients, guests, or even their own employees need to ensure that they have the appropriate packaging.

Designing custom gift card holders for a company is a little different from creating designs for other marketing collateral (like folders and brochures) because recipients already have a compelling reason to open it; naturally, they want to redeem the voucher or certificate inside. This allows you to focus less on encouraging people to open the piece and more on representing the company’s brand, ensuring that those who are already happy to receive a gift will associate those positive feelings with your client.

For special events, you’ll also want to ensure that your design conveys the appropriate amount of formality and gravitas. An elegant wine tasting has a very different tone from an office holiday party or a celebration of someone’s philanthropic service; each of these calls for packaging with a matching visual theme.

Choosing precisely how to package a client’s gift cards can be difficult if you’re not sure where to start. To that end, we have assembled this collection of design ideas from Company Folders’ Product Gallery to help ignite your creativity and make better choices.

Card Folders

A printed paper folder is an excellent choice when you want a gift card’s presentation to have a bit more gravity. Since they often resemble a traditional greeting card, these card holders tend to come across as more intimate and personal.

2 3/4″ x 3 3/4″ Gift/Key Card Holder

Chubbies Shorts

Chubbies’ retro-style design is reminiscent of marketing materials from the 1920s, with bold, masculine illustrations.

5 1/8″ x 3 3/8″ Gift/Key Card Holder

Pine Ridge Vineyards

Acting as a formal “invitation” for a charming Napa vineyard, this design features an engraved illustration and classic typography. This particular design is horizontally-oriented, but this style of holder can support vertical designs as well.

Morton Salt, Inc.

Morton’s highly recognizable brand colors feature heavily in this personalized design, which functions as a presentation folder for an award.

Economy Standard Gift Card Holder

All the Best Pet Care

A vibrant color scheme and silhouetted images of furry friends give this card holder design a fun and whimsical feel. This economy card holder is highly cost-effective and comes standard with four-color process printing, making it an ideal choice for low-quantity orders of colorful designs.

Hanging Gift Card Holder

Graceway

Graceway’s card holder uses a seashell pattern on the front cover and a seafoam green color on both the exterior and interior, evoking the thought of a relaxing stroll along the beach. The die cut hole at the top of the holder allows it to hang from a rack (like those you might find in a supermarket).

Agway of Cape Cod

This design for a lawn, garden, and pet store uses the company’s mascot (a brightly-colored rooster) to instill brand recognition in their audience.

Right Pocket Gift/Key Card Holder

Greg Allan Saddlery

Greg Allan Saddlery’s logo (a two-character lettermark) appears on both the front and back cover of this card folder. Two embossed horse images help give the design a classical equestrian feel.

Anthony’s Ristorante and Banquet Center

The ornate font, border, and other design elements used in this design help to create a look of luxury and high class. Inside, a row of illustrations of cutlery decorates the folder’s pocket.

Side Fold Gift Card Holder

EdgeCast Networks

EdgeCast Networks’ card holder uses epic, exciting imagery from the sci-fi video game Hawken to get recipients pumped up. The tab on the right side of the design folds into the die cut slit on the cover, helping the folder stay closed (similarly to an envelope) without the use of adhesive.

Curved Right Pocket Key/Gift Card Holder

Daniel Gibbings Jewelry

Metallic gold foil gives this design a lavish and upscale feel reminiscent of the jewelry that the company offers for purchase. The curved pocket helps the inside of the design stand out when compared to more conventional folders with square-shaped pockes.

3 Panel Key/Gift Card Holder

Suburban Sit

This card folder design expresses a modern, casual style with the use of sans serif typography and clean, flat illustrations. With three panels, this style of printed holder offers extra design space, which is useful when there’s a lot of information to communicate.

Dine Local Loyalty

A bold, bright red design and full-color photos of tasty dishes put recipients of this folder from Dine Local Loyalty in a hungry mood.

Left Pocket Gift/Key Card Holder

Equestrian Room Club

The Equestrian Room Club’s design features a detailed illustration that brings the associated racetrack’s rich history and traditions to the forefront of recipients’ minds.

See more card folders

Card Sleeves

Sleeves are lighter and more mobile than card folders, but they don’t provide as much space for printed photos, illustrations, or other design ideas. For this reason, card sleeve designs tend to be more condensed and efficient.

4-Color Process Card Sleeve

University of Washington Football

The University of Washington takes an unusual approach for this sleeve design promoting their football team—a lone football player emerging from the mist.

Conveners.org

This design from Conveners.org uses slightly muted colors like teal and gray. The logo on the front is in a flat style and consists of primary colors, creating a look that somehow feels both modern and retro at the same time.

Hotel Key/Credit/Gift Card Sleeve

WyoMovies

WyoMovies’ card sleeve uses fun cartoon characters and bright, energetic colors like red, orange, and yellow to draw the recipient’s attention.

Honeygrow

A stylish, minimalist pattern and lower-case sans serif typography gives Honeygrow’s sleeve a trendy and contemporary feel.

See more card sleeves

Gift Card Packaging and Design Inspirations?

Do you have more gift card holder design ideas? Any creative ways to package gift cards that you’d like to show off? Share them in the comments below!

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