The winners of the prestigious On the Cards greeting card competition for creative undergraduates were presented with their awards at PG Live on Tuesday (5 June).
The On the Cards competition is organised by Paper Rose/The Art Group, paper company GF Smith, Sherwood Group and Paperchase, each year promotes the career opportunities in the greeting card industry by inspiring undergraduate students from leading art colleges the chance to design a greeting card range – with the chance of seeing them on sale in Paperchase as well as a cash prize and work placements.
The first prize winner Luna Paszliewicz (of Nottingham Trent University) and second prize winner Emily Rogers (of Leeds Arts University) were delighted to be invited to PG Live and be presented with their certificates.
Both their entries were also on display at the show as well as examples of last year’s winning entries.
Luna Paszliewicz’s winning entry, Emotionally Sustainable Cards, is a card concept based on vegetable pun illustrations of a vegetable or herb, including seeds for the featured plant, all printed on environmentally-friendly board.
Luna, who is in her last year at Nottingham Trent Uni, said she was “overwhelmingly amazed to have won” the On The Cards competition and is interested in pursuing a career either in children’s books or stationery.
Second prize winner Emily Rogers of Leeds Arts University was feted for her Wellbeing Wisdom concept, which centres around a shallow stack of peel away motivational messages affixed to the front of the card.
There is no doubting Emily’s love and affinity for greeting cards. “I work on greeting card designs all the time – in fact I have dedicated my final show to a greeting card and giftwrap concept.”
All entries were judged by a panel which comprised Paperchase buyers Hazel Walker and Emma Clooney; The Art Group/Paper Rose trio of Reggie Pugh, Philippa Phipps and Nigel Wilcox; GF Smith’s Mark Jessett; Sherwood’s Nicky Marshall; PG’s Gale Astley and Jakki Brown with Ilona Drew of I Drew This invited as this year’s artist judge.
This is the fourth year of the competition which was set up to introduce creative students to the greeting card industry. “A lot of students don’t appreciate how much goes into designing cards, it’s a very exacting process,” says Mark Jessett, paper consultant for GF Smith and one of the judges of the competition. “We hope to encourage students to think about the greeting card industry as a possible career path.”
