Next week, September 21–27, is Thinking of You Week, an annual campaign organised by the UK Greeting Card Association. Now in its 12th year, the campaign encourages people to reach out with a card to friends, family, neighbours, colleagues and anyone who might appreciate a little lift.

But for greeting card artists, Thinking of You Week raises an interesting question:

What if we stopped thinking of “Thinking of You” as an occasion?

Birthdays are easy to identify. So are weddings, anniversaries, graduations and Christmas. Even difficult moments such as bereavement and illness have established card categories.

But life contains an enormous number of moments that fall somewhere between them.

There is no official occasion for I know you’re having a horrible month.

There isn’t a holiday for I haven’t heard from you lately and wanted you to know I haven’t forgotten you.

And nobody has yet declared National I Know You’re Taking Care of Everyone Else, But Who’s Taking Care of You? Day.

Perhaps that’s precisely why these cards can matter.

Design for a Situation, Not an Occasion

A general Thinking of You card has the advantage of working for almost anyone.

For artists selling at Greeting Card Universe, however, specificity can give us another way into the category.

Instead of starting with:

Who needs a Thinking of You card?

try asking:

When might someone suddenly wish they had a card to send?

That produces much more interesting possibilities.

Think about the friend who works night shifts and seems to inhabit an entirely different time zone from everyone else.

The long-distance gaming friend you’ve never actually met but have spoken to every week for six years.

The caregiver who is constantly asked how the person they’re caring for is doing, but rarely how they are doing.

The friend who disappears when life becomes overwhelming.

Someone whose recovery is progressing, just much more slowly than everyone expected.

The newly single person experiencing their first quiet weekend alone.

The person who moved away and insists they’re doing wonderfully, but probably wouldn’t mind finding something other than a bill in the mailbox.

None of these requires a major life event.

That is the point.

Look for the Emotional Micro-Moment

We often design cards around milestones. Thinking of You cards invite us to design around micro-moments instead.

Those can certainly be tender:

Just wanted you to know you’re on my mind.

But they don’t have to be.

A card for the night-shift worker might say:

While the Rest of Us Were Sleeping, You Apparently Kept Civilization Running.

A card for the friend who has gone unusually quiet:

No Need to Reply. Just Sending Proof That I Know Where You Live.

For a long-distance friendship:

Apparently Friendship Can Survive Several Thousand Miles and Both of Us Being Terrible at Answering Messages.

Humor can perform exactly the same emotional job as sentiment. Sometimes it performs it better.

And humor immediately opens up the visual possibilities too. These don’t all have to be flowers, hearts and peaceful landscapes. Cats, monsters, grumpy vegetables, retro office workers, cartoons and gloriously strange characters can say I’m thinking about you just as effectively.

Think Beyond the Usual Relationships

This is also an opportunity to look beyond the standard recipient list.

Thinking of You doesn’t have to mean Mother, Sister, Husband or Best Friend.

What about:

• a former coworker you still miss?
• an online friend?
• a neighbour who moved away?
• a former teacher?
• a deployed friend?
• a pet sitter who became a friend?
• an elderly relative living alone?
• someone spending their first holiday season after moving overseas?
• a friend going through exams?
• someone caring for a sick pet?

The more precisely we can imagine the recipient, the easier it becomes to imagine what somebody might actually want to say to them.

And somewhere among those very specific people may be a customer searching GCU for exactly that card.

Avoid Turning Everything Into Sympathy

There is an important distinction here.

Not every difficult period needs solemnity.

If every Thinking of You design aimed at someone having a hard time uses muted flowers, soft watercolors and deeply emotional wording, we risk quietly turning the whole category into Sympathy Lite.

Sometimes people want encouragement without discussing what happened.

Sometimes they want normality.

Sometimes they want a ridiculous cat.

A strong design might acknowledge the situation without requiring either the sender or recipient to name it:

Whatever This Week Is Doing, I’m On Your Side.

No Advice. No Inspirational Quotes. Just Me, Thinking of You.

Or:

I Can’t Fix It. I Can Send Cardboard.

That last approach also gives artists permission to explore illustration and humor styles that might look completely out of place on a traditional sympathy or get-well card.

And that’s a good thing.

Find the People Who Usually Don’t Get the Card

Here’s another useful brainstorming exercise.

Think about situations in which one person naturally receives all the attention.

Someone is seriously ill. Everyone asks after the patient. What about their partner or caregiver?

A child leaves for university. Everyone asks how the student is settling in. What about the parent suddenly staring at an empty bedroom?

Someone has a baby. The baby receives cards, gifts and attention. Perhaps an exhausted older sibling could use a little acknowledgment too.

A family pet is seriously ill. Everyone worries about the animal, but there may be a human sitting beside that pet who hasn’t slept properly in days.

Sometimes the most interesting card isn’t for the obvious recipient.

It’s for the person standing just outside the spotlight.

Don’t Put “Thinking of You Week” on the Card

Thinking of You Week gives us the prompt to design these cards.

It doesn’t necessarily need to appear in the designs themselves.

A card specifically mentioning September’s Thinking of You Week has a very short selling season.

A card for the friend who disappears when life gets loud can sell twelve months of the year.

That’s the useful creative challenge here:

Use the event as inspiration, not expiration.

Try This Before Designing Your Next Card

Before opening your graphics program, finish this sentence:

This card is for someone who…

Don’t stop at needs cheering up.

Keep going until you can see the person.

This card is for someone who has been caring for their mother for six months and is exhausted.

This card is for someone who moved across the country and misses their old friends.

This card is for an online friend you have never met in person.

This card is for someone whose beloved pet is seriously ill.

This card is for the friend who retreats when they’re overwhelmed.

This card is for someone starting over and pretending they’re much less terrified than they actually are.

Now design that card.

It may ultimately belong under Thinking of You, Friendship, Encouragement, Miss You, Support or another GCU category. That’s fine.

The category is where we put it.

The person is who we’re designing it for.

And that degree of specificity can create the little moment we’re always hoping for when a customer encounters one of our designs:

That’s it. That’s exactly the card I was looking for.

The Occasion Between the Occasions

The Greeting Card Association describes Thinking of You Week as an opportunity to reach out, connect and create a wave of caring through sending cards.

For artists, perhaps it can also serve as an annual reminder to look beyond the dates printed on the calendar.

Because some of the most meaningful reasons to send a greeting card aren’t printed there at all.

There may be no birthday.

No anniversary.

No holiday.

No congratulations to offer and no official milestone to mark.

Sometimes somebody simply crosses your mind and you realise it’s been too long.

Sometimes you know they’re struggling.

Sometimes you suspect they could use a laugh.

Sometimes you just want a small piece of cardboard to travel across town, across the country or across the world and quietly say:

I thought of you.

And perhaps that’s occasion enough.

Find Out More

Thinking of You Week 2026 takes place September 21–27. The Greeting Card Association has information about the campaign, ideas for getting involved and promotional resources available on its website:

Greeting Card Association: Thinking of You Week

Happy Designing!

Corrie