Minted reveals 2025 Holiday Card Trends: A return to vintage, folk, and heritage-inspired design
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Minted unveiled its 2025 Holiday Card Design Trends, highlighting a surge in vintage photography, modern folk illustration, and reimagined heritage patterns and preppy classics like toile, gingham, and stripes. Drawn from Minted’s global network of artists and millions of community votes, the 2025 Holiday Card Collection showcases designs that feel distinctly “analog”— warm, character-rich cards that favor storytelling and craftsmanship, the company says. These trends arrive alongside the brand’s continued expansion into premium card formats and its new, complimentary Holiday Concierge service for personalized guidance on all your holiday card and celebration needs.
Behind each Minted holiday card is an independent artist whose work rises through the brand’s unique design challenge model that surfaces the freshest design trends and brings them to market. The 18th Annual Holiday Card Challenge generated more than 8,500 design submissions and two million consumer votes. These submissions paired with searches on Minted reveal data that supports a deep consumer appetite for designs that feel personal, unique, and rooted in tradition.
Key aesthetic trends shaping 2025
- Vintage Photography: Retro snapshots, photo-booth-inspired formats, and pre-digital visual texture define the fastest-growing trend of 2025 — expanding fivefold in designs and growing by over 300% in searches on Minted year over year as families embrace an editorial, film-era look.
- Modern Folk: Storybook motifs, hand-cut paper effects, wallpaper-style illustrations, and nostalgic color palettes drove a 38% rise in submissions; searches for these styles on Minted grew by over 250% year over year. This year’s first-place design, “Woodland Papercut” by Paris-based Minted artist Leia Matt, reflects the movement’s handcrafted appeal.
- Classic Patterns Reimagined: Heritage textile influences are back in force — refreshed with joyful palettes and modern typography. Festive stripe designs increased 160% year over year, gingham 90%, and toile 100%. Similarly, site data on Minted reveals searches for plaid, tartan and gingham grew more than 270% this season as “Ralph Lauren Christmas”reigns supreme on TikTok and Instagram.
“There’s a special kind of joy in discovering a holiday card in the mailbox — it’s a tangible reminder of care and connection in a digital-first world,” said Melissa Kim, CEO and Co-Founder of Minted. “Our 2025 collection honors that feeling through unique designs and traditional craftsmanship: letterpress, foil-press, and hand-mounted photo details that bring artistry to correspondence. The 2025 trends reflect a collective desire for analog designs that feel timeless and nostalgic. With the introduction of our Holiday Concierge, we’re extending that same sense of thoughtfulness to the customer experience, offering personal guidance to help every detail feel considered and meaningful.”
To support customers seeking a cohesive, personalized look, Minted has launched the Holiday Concierge, a complimentary 30-minute virtual consultation offering guidance on card selection, personalization, photo layouts, and finishing touches like envelope liners, wax seals, vellum jackets, and vintage stamps. The experience is designed to ensure every Concierge customer creates a holiday card that feels thoughtful, personal, and uniquely theirs.
Minted also launched new high-end card designs:
- Photo Mount Cards: Now featuring double the number of designs, Minted’s most luxe format pairs a semi-gloss photo mounted by hand onto premium cardstock — available in Letterpress and new Foil-Pressed finishes, with expanded photo sizes and recycled paper options. The Photo Mount format represents Minted’s most elevated offering, designed to be displayed and saved as a keepsake.
- Tall Format Cards: Stand out from the stack with a sleek new silhouette (8.25″ x 4″) designed for full-length imagery and clean, modern layouts. Available in both portrait and landscape across more than 100 designs, including foil finishes,