The past few months out at trade shows have been a joy, with a plethora of inspiring new greeting card publishers and beautiful designs hitting the market.
Brand new greetings brand, The Little Bells, was founded by artistic sisters Lizzie and Clare, who first tested the waters at PG Live and – encouraged by a very positive reception to their work – have signed up to Spring Fair 2016.
Billed as ‘free range’ designs by the nature-loving sisters, Little Bells cards are based around a series of cute animal characters, all of them portraits of the real animals that Lizzie and Clare grew up with on the family farm.
Another great show for spotting new card publishers and edgier designers is Top Drawer London, which this year had a fantastic greetings and stationery selection.
For those who like their birds, bees and botanicals, Jen Rowland has a distinctive range of square art cards featuring fauna and flora in a traditional style that will appeal to nature lovers. Blank note cards are also available in this elegant range, with a few on-trend stags rearing their heads amongst the birds.
Also appealing to the green-fingered amongst us will be Elspeth Thomson’s innovative dinosaur design for a little boy, complete with Jurassic-style ferns as a habitat. A dab hand at embroidery, Elspeth also has general birthday cards that blossom with pretty designs that would suit any local garden centre down to the ground.
Another great greetings designer who hits our target market is Ashley Thomas, who has come up with a range of greetings and stationery that is both classic and contemporary, with interesting typography woven into romantic florals, birds, teacup and cake motifs in soft pastel colours.
