Editor's Letters Features

I adore celebrating extraordinary design — and every last brand and maker that makes it happen. Whether it’s last year’s Louie Awards or this or this year’s Makers to Watch, it’s always joyful to honor individuals in our community. What a gift to slow down and consider a spectacular design — and that spectacular individual or team who brought it to life.

My biggest challenge is when I feel forced to judge apples against oranges. Both are already perfect. So with Makers to Watch, how can I measure, say, a heartfelt sympathy range, featuring messaging that legitimately brings tears to my eyes, with an edgy risograph range, extraordinarily hand-lettered in 21st-century lingo?

There’s no easy criteria. Regardless, I’m so enormously proud of this year’s maker class. Together, they blend endless compelling directions I’m seeing in stationery — and individually, every last release is utterly fantastic.

Take Barone & Co. This is technically a newer brand, but every design also exemplifies Vicky Barone’s 20 years of licensing expertise. Meanwhile, Vanessa Harnik of Notes & Queries doesn’t design cards, but she represents the savvy second generation of trendspotters bringing cutting-edge European design to American shelves.

Karen Sawyer-Meehan of Pier Six Press just won the Rising Star Louie Award, and her impressive mastery of risograph, letterpress, color and messaging — a quadruple design threat! — spotlight several intriguing design paths. Conversely, with every release, Carissa Potter of People I’ve Loved aims to create “a conversation we long to have, a feeling we are. hoping for, an object to do the impossible.”

Don’t get me started on our cat-a-rific frontispiece contributed by one of last year’s Makers to Watch, Talia Bromstad of Bromstad Printing Co. I’m thrilled to feature her incredible work welcoming this year’s class. Talia first printed her frontis, banners and labels on risograph, and then scanned them back in for that rich texture and misregistration. Her approach is absolutely distinctive, and the effect, absolutely brilliant!

Clearly, one-size-fits-all approaches are behind us. My hope is that all my readers enjoy reading these backstories and seeing this gorgeous work as much as I enjoyed compiling it all — and that everyone discovers endless inspiration for their own artistry! That also applies to our dozen dazzling 2026 Gift + Stationery Spotlight Award winners on page 38. Just remember: If you’ve made even one person’s life better through what you do, you’re transformative too!

Until next issue,

P.S. Please join us in honoring our Spotlight Award winners at our Atlanta
Market-based ceremony Jan. 15. Visit giftshopmag.com/spotlightRSVP.