Every year, card vendors from across the world celebrate the annual LOUIE awards. These awards, typically dubbed the “LOUIEs”, are officially known as the International Greeting Card Awards Competition, and have recognized the best of the best greeting cards, invitations, and announcements, segmented by sending occasion and price point, marketed in the United States for 31 years. To hold a LOUIE award is the equivalent of holding an Oscar in the greeting card industry.
This year, Up With Paper was awarded an unprecedented 3 LOUIE Awards for new designs released in 2018. The company received awards for excelling in the: birthday, blank, and children’s card divisions.
Approximately 1,000 designs are submitted to the competition each year, from hundreds of publishers, and each card is judged on five different criteria: Design Excellence, Impact, Originality, Value, and Sendability. Every card submitted is judged on a scale of one to ten, and then based off the scores, the top three cards of each category advance to become finalists. These finalists are announced mid-February, leaving all of the companies eager to discover which cards take home the big prize in May. The Card of the Year awards are judged by a collective group of Blue Ribbon Panelists. They select the top card for two categories, one above $4.00 and one below $4.00 from the Finalists from all other categories.
Of the 3 LOUIE Awards received by Up With Paper this year, two were from the Everyday Treasures line, with the other being from the Everyday Panoramics lines. Up With Paper not only won these awards this year, but sets a consecutive record of winning them now multiple years in a row.
“Winning the LOUIE award more than two years in a row in multiple different categories is just amazing,” said Monika Brandrup, VP and Creative Director for Up With Paper. “We are ecstatic and humbled to hold the industry’s higher honor again this year. We have always been a company of hard work, creative thinking, and design expertise; and we are proud to be able share this title with our customers and our retailers.”
Following is a list of Up With Paper’s 2019 LOUIE winners:
1. Potted Plants
This is our Potted Plants card found in our Up With Paper Everyday Treasures collection. This card won first place in the Blank Cards division. The artist of this card is Kathryn Selbert.
2. Princess & Unicorn
This is our Princess & Unicorn card found in our Up With Paper Everyday Treasures collection. This card won first place in the Child’s Cards $4.00 and up division. The artist of this card is Rebecca Jones.
3. Dog Walker
This is our Dog Walker card found in our Up With Paper Everyday Panoramics collection. This card won first place in the Birthday $4.00 and up division. The artist of this card is Kathryn Selbert.
Originally founded as PopShots Inc. in 1978, Up With Paper has been recognized for design excellence more than 100 times with the Greeting Card Association’s highest honor, the LOUIE award, including the “Card of the Year” LOUIE Award in 2005, 2018, and 2019. Up With Paper’s intricate, innovative Treasures, Panoramics, and Sight ‘n Sound Pop-Up Greeting Card lines, Pop-Up Snow Globe Greetings®, Delighted Shadowbox Cards, Pop-Up Notepads, Boxed Cards, and Trinkets® gift enclosures, as well as the company’s Up With Paper boutique line of trend-driven pop-up greeting cards, laser cut stationery, and elegant home goods, are available in thousands of specialty retail outlets throughout the United States and around the world.