Opportunities flagged to educate students on opportunities in greetings sector
Graduate opportunities in the greeting card industry are being flagged up by the GCA with a New Creative Talent portal and series of blogs now on the association’s website, all being spearheaded by Geoff Sanderson.
This follows on from the Graduate Open Call for students at the 2022 GCA Conference, the move to bring more degree students into the industry has been spearheaded by creative consultant Geoff, with Hallmark’s Eve Gray, Mark Jessett from G.F Smith, Tracy Allanson-Smith from Birmingham City University, and the association’s ceo Amanda Fergusson.
The New Creative Talent portal allows universities joining the GCA to showcase their students’ work to highlight interested graduates to other members and assist their journey into the industry.
Geoff said: “The greeting card industry has been one of the UK creative industries’ best-kept secrets. It’s a fantastic starting point for thousands of graduates in illustration, graphic design, photography, surface pattern, textiles or creative and innovative people generally; who have entered via work placement, freelance, licensing, recruitment or setting up their own small business, online site or selling designs at a print fair.
“The GCA’s Annual Market Report shows the UK greetings industry is worth over £1.5billion in annual retail sales, and that’s just single greeting cards! The British send more cards per capita than any other nation, and we lead the world in greeting card innovation and design.”
Students can also contact the GCA individually and take their portfolio of relevant designs to this year’s Open Call Graduate Portfolio Showcase at the conference in Leeds on 28 September – Geoff is asking the prospective designers to come forward now via this link as they will be shortlisting portfolios from now through August.
Geoff has spent many years recruiting and developing greeting card designers in businesses such as Tigerprint/M&S, Hallmark and Moonpig, and he is being assisted by Eve Gray, who is Hallmark’s creative development director in the Future Squad and works with the students at the annual New Designers show in London where the publisher has sponsored two awards for more than two decades, with a number joining the business over the years on the design side.
And Tracy Allanson-Smith has got on board with Birmingham City University joining the GCA as a supplier member to establish the benefits, issues and mechanics of working together to offer opportunities to fresh creative talent.
Together they have created a flyer, designed by Farah Girach from the uni and kindly printed by Propack, using paper and envelopes provided by G.F Smith who also paid the artist, which is intended to be sent to lecturer and academic contacts as well as being given direct to graduates, and there are two blogs on Working In The Greeting Card Industry and Connecting Students With The Greeting Card Industry.
“We’re looking for a small group of relevant students to showcase in this year’s Open Call,” Geoff said, “so if you know any interested parties please feel free to contact myself or Amanda.
“And we’re looking for case studies and stories we can develop into blogs or news from GCA members’ projects with students both from the last 12 months and in the future.”
