Behind The Brand

A studio in Cambridgeshire, a hot-foil machine and a lifelong habit of making cards

Some people find their calling early. For the designer behind Grace Jackson Design, it started with homemade cards for friends and family – a tradition that grew more ambitious with every birthday and Christmas, each card an excuse to try a more complicated design or a better technique.

That early interest in paper and print followed her to university and then into publishing. She worked as a designer at Country Life magazine before moving into the reprographics department at Time Inc., where she handled 28 national magazines. It was there that printing techniques became a genuine passion, along with the disciplines that surround them: close attention to detail, strict brand guidelines and the intricacies of printing profiles.

A move to Manchester prompted her to put those skills towards something of her own. Experimenting on an iPad, she produced a first Christmas card. Encouragement from friends and family led to a wider range of greeting cards, notecards and notebooks, and in autumn 2019, now back in Cambridgeshire, the business took its current shape. A course for people wanting to run their own wedding stationery or greeting card company confirmed the direction, and she invested in a hot-foil machine. Every card is now foiled by hand in her Cambridgeshire studio.

Getting the heat, pressure and dwell time right – the combination that produces the sharpest impression and the most even foil coverage – makes each new design a fresh problem to solve, which is precisely the appeal. The cards are available for wholesale this year, and their maker is looking forward to meeting retailers and exhibitors at Harrogate Home & Gift.

Luxurious, fountain pen-friendly paper

Grace Jackson Design has been trading since autumn 2019, supplying buyers and retailers with hot-foiled greeting cards, notecards, lay-flat notebooks, gift wrap and tags. The Harrogate show marks the brand’s first appearance at a trade fair, and its first outing at Home & Gift – an occasion its founder describes as exciting and, understandably, a little nerve-racking. Visitors will find her on stand DP4-106.

From screen to print

Asked about the best part of running her own brand, she points to the moment a design makes the leap from screen to printed product, particularly when the finished item surpasses what she had imagined. The most recent delivery of Ota-bound lay-flat notebooks brought back the same thrill as that very first Christmas card. The quality, she says, has to be seen to be appreciated.

Advice for anyone starting out

Working out which direction to take is one of the hardest parts of starting a business. Well-meaning guidance from friends and family has its place, but it pays to remember that you know yourself best. Listening to your own interests and designing the things that bring you joy is often the beginning of something worthwhile for customers too – and giving yourself room to explore and follow what inspires you is the advice she would pass on to her younger self.

What’s new at the show

The Swirl Notebooks come in five colours, each with 208 lined pages of high-quality paper suited to fountain pens with no bleed-through. A column-based tick box on every page is designed to make note-taking and organisation more straightforward.

Alongside the notebooks, the brand is introducing a range of gift wrap and gift tags to sit alongside existing card designs, plus several new card ranges.

A personal favourite

The Coral Swirl Notebook is the current pick of the collection – coral being a long-standing favourite colour, and a new notebook being hard to resist.

Looking ahead to Harrogate

Exhibiting at Home & Gift is a chance to meet in person the buyers and retailers she has been working with, to see the latest industry trends and to build the connections that will carry the business forward. There is also the lure of Harrogate itself: a town she never managed to visit while living in Manchester, and one she now has a good excuse to explore.

Paper, foil and packaging

Sustainability has become a central concern for retailers and buyers alike, and the brand’s aim is to operate ethically and sustainably. Paper products are sourced from FSC certified forests and are fully recyclable. All foil waste is recycled through FoilCo’s Zero Foil to Landfill scheme, and as much packaging as possible is reused. The result, she hopes, is beautiful products with as little environmental impact as possible.