One of the most rewarding aspects of being in the greeting card industry is the quality of the people you meet. Not only do designers of greeting cards have the writing skills to get a sentiment across in a few short sentences, and the talent to create the perfect visual aspect of the card, but they are also the kindest people you’ll ever meet.
This kindness includes the generous sharing of knowledge, perspective, and time. Amy Frazer is one of these special people. As a community leader, she has been there from day one of my entrepreneurial journey in the greeting card industry.
I started working closely with Amy when she hosted a Zoom call to help get ready for our first trade show in April of 2022. The sharing of anxiety, and, more importantly, solutions, helped us all have a successful first show at the Noted Expo in 2022, hosted by The Greeting Card Association.
We got together after the show and decided to continue our bi-weekly meetings. The result is a group of women supporting women, affectionately known as Wholesale Therapy.
Vegas Baby
Amy and I decided individually to exhibit at the Las Vegas Market in July of 2022. After working through the initial push of getting packed and ready to exhibit, the five-day show was slower at times than expected. This allowed for plenty of time to get to know Amy, as well as the other exhibitors.
With Amy’s background in design and illustration, it’s not surprising she’s been able to quickly create a successful greeting card, gift, and embroidery business with Keller Design Co.
In Vegas, I also learned more about Amy's book, Empowered Embroidery, and her collaboration with Emiko for Keller & Friends.
On that trip, even though nothing exciting enough happened in Vegas that should stay in Vegas, the idea to collaborate on a line of age-positive greeting cards was born.
The Collaborative Process
Amy and I met weekly for several months to work on our collaboration. We started with a list of age-positive phrases, and discussed them in depth, making sure we both understood the rich meaning of the words.
Next up was discussing design concepts, intending to create a cohesive visual set of designs that could not only stand on their own but look great together as a set.
I worked on font options that would complement the phrases, selecting font combinations with both serif and sanserif options, script, and block styles. After much discussion, we came up with a pair of fonts we both liked, and I went to work making sure they worked well with our age-positive phrases.
We created a color palette using a combination of our brand colors. Amy was surprised to learn that Age-Friendly Vibes has 8 brand colors, which expands beyond the red and teal used in Age-Friendly Vibes text-based designs.
Amy got to work on the art, sharing design elements she previously created that would work for our collaboration. I was immediately taken by the eyes used in ‘See Your Unique Beauty’ and the playful circles featured in the ‘Age-Positive Vibes.’
Amy got out her watercolors and created a stunning background for the ‘Future Has No Limits,’ followed by the captivating sun used in the ‘It’s Never Too Late to Follow Your Dreams’ design.
For ‘Love Your Future Self,’ the last design that came together, we used the sun rays to make a frame decorated with a flower Amy created to pull together this sweet, yet impactful design.
We worked together on adding heart and star icons to pull together all designs.
The Result
I’m proud of the cards we created in this collaboration of five designs, all featuring age-positive sentiments.
After sending designs to print, updating websites, and adding the collection to Faire, we were ready to introduce our collaboration at the Noted Expo in April 2023.
You can shop the Keller Collaboration at Age-Friendly Vibes.
