Trade Show News

{Sponsored} The retail holiday season is nearly upon us, and consumers are starting to look for the perfect gifts and the latest design aesthetics. New products are hitting the shelves daily, it seems, and it is up to retailers to have the hot products and on-trend designs. Here are some themes we’re seeing for Holiday 2020 that buyers can always find at AmericasMart.

Rustic Looks

Natural branches, mushrooms and acorns continue to star in many holiday-themed designs. Whether they’re used in luxe gilded cards or in watercolored vintage looks, these elements have claimed a seat at the holiday stationery table.

Text-based designs

The past few years, the stationery world has seen more and more designers moving toward utilizing text design, fonts and colors as the featured design element for cards, notebooks and other paper products. Many designers rely on typefaces to create clean, crisp designs and enjoy the endless formatting and placement options. By putting these on heavier weight paper, the text stands out even more.

At Tiramisu Paperie, the designs always feature text. “Type is an image; it is a shape that lets you make a simple phrase really powerful or very subtle. That is the one trend my designs always go to. You can say so much with the lettering and the coloring and how you make certain words bigger or smaller and changing alignment,” said Lisa Sarmento of Tiramisu Paperie.

Vintage and retro

Whether it’s a whimsical card in bright, clean red or stationery featuring funny Santa cheeks twinged red with cold, Dixie Design Collective brings many nostalgic designs to market. Their holiday designs include rainbow lights and vintage ornaments. Besides retro Christmas, designs featuring small animals with the feel of vintage art also are back — especially designs with woodland animals.

Cute woodland animals

Across the design world, baby animals or cute illustrations of animals are trending — and not just in baby designs. Hedgehogs, bunnies, foxes and squirrels are making their way into every style imaginable, especially in the stationery world. Woodland animals play an important part in winter and holiday designs.

Since the theme of woodland animals isn’t new this holiday season, designers are freshening up the themes with foil, flowers, muted colors and sweet words. A new gift bag from PAPAYA shows retro-inspired bunnies holding hands, with the muted shades of vintage wallpaper in soft greens, peach and powder blue. Gold foil “Warm and Fuzzy” scrolls across the top of the bag. The unique style of PAPAYA designs is prettied up with foil down the edges of the bag. Buyers can bring back several sizes of the bag as well as a tasseled gift tag to round out the set.

J.Falkner Christmas Love red plaid card

Buffalo Check Plaid

Buffalo check plaid is a pattern first created by Woolrich Woolen Mills around 1850. It seems to never get old, as we see it used nearly every year in the fashion industry, and as stationery mimics fashion mimics art, we’re seeing it again this winter.

It brings nostalgia and the feeling of warmth to the cold seasons, adorned on holiday pajamas, in ribbons around gifts or adoring a Christmas tree and on napkins and gift wrap. The pattern sticks around well past the holiday season and into the colder months. The bold checks are seen in fashion, on fleece button-downs and the lining of warm boots.

Consumers also seek it out in holiday cards and wrap. Dixie Design Collective features a suite dedicated to buffalo check plaid designs, and J. Falkner calls buffalo check “a natural go-to” for their holiday collections.

While many of these trending holiday designs will still be available in January, buyers will be able to see what’s new for spring during January Market. To learn more about what attendees will see in January and to register, visit AmericasMart.com/January.

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