The foreground pattern is based on either on the name of the person, or the age.

The background may be plain white, or may be a pattern containing details of the birthday - for example the person's name, age, date of birth, etc - you are able to specify the text you want.

The greeting is often fairly plain although in some cards, it forms part of the foreground pattern.

There are three birthday card series, based on the foreground pattern:

1. age. This is usually based on numbers, but roman numerals are used in some cards.

2. length. Here the name is transformed in some way. The effect depends on a number of things:

• the length of the name. The length depends not only on the number of letters but also on their width - for example narrow letters such as i or l compared to wide letters such as m or w.
• the letters in the name. Not only does he letter width have an effect, so does the presence of ascenders such as h,k,l, or descenders such as g,j,p,y.
• the font used.
• the actual transformation operation employed.

3. alphabet. - Here the main design element is the first letter of the name and so the design can be used for almost any name.