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, UWP Luxe was awarded an unprecedented 7 LOUIE Awards for new designs released in 2018, including the overall Card of the Year for the second straight year. Two other most coveted awards for the most popular sending occasions, with a special call out for excellence in print and production.
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.
Floral Envelope, pictured above, from UWP Luxe was the winner of the annual 2019 LOUIE Card of the Year award.
Of the 7 LOUIE Awards received by UWP Luxe this year, two were from the Pure Alchemy line, one from the Pure Alchemy Christmas line, and the remaining four where from the Dear Alchemy line. UWP Luxe received the Card of the Year award, exactly one year after the Pure Alchemy card, Nutcracker, won the same title.
“Winning the Card of the Year award two years in a row, along with the Birthday and Christmas category LOUIEs is just amazing,” said Monika Brandrup, VP and Creative Director for UWP Luxe. “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 UWP Luxe’s 2019 LOUIE winners:
1. Greenhouse
This is our Greenhouse card found in our UWP Luxe Pure Alchemy collection. This card won first place in the Print and Production Excellence division. The artist of this card is Yoojin Kim.
2. Fortune Cookie
This is our Fortune Cookie card found in our UWP Luxe Pure Alchemy collection. This card won first place in the Congratulations/Special Occasion above $4.00 division. The artist of this card is Nicole Yen, while the paper engineer of this card is, Yevgeniya Yeretskaya.
3. Dove
This is our Dove card found in our UWP Luxe Pure Alchemy Christmas collection. This card won first place in the Christmas/Seasonal General above $4.00 division. The artist of this card is Rosie Harbottle, while the paper engineer of this card was Joe Klim.
4. Matchbook
This is our Matchbook card found in our UWP Luxe Dear Alchemy collection. This card won first place in the LGBTQ division. The artist of this card is Jackie Chakar.
5. Paper Airplane
This is our Paper Airplane card found in our UWP Luxe Dear Alchemy collection. This card won first place in the Get Well/Feel Better above $4.00 division. The artist of this card is Clarice Gifford, while the paper engineer of this card is, Yevgeniya Yeretskaya.
6. Floral Envelope
This is our Floral Envelope card found in our UWP Luxe Dear Alchemy collection. This card won first place in the Friendship/Encouragement above $4.00 division. This card also received the Card of the Year award, as explained above. The artist of this card is Yoojin Kim.
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 uwp luxe 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.
