SS: Not only have you renamed Pop Shots as Up With Paper, you brought UWP Luxe into the fold. When NSS was co-located with NY NOW in 2019, we simply kept our NY NOW space in the 7600 aisle, as we liked that location for both the Winter and Summer shows. GW: I missed our giant column that forced us to have a weird booth shape, as well as our location at the bottom of the escalator AND our friends at Avanti after we moved. We found ourselves needing more space about 10 years ago, so moved back to obtain a larger footprint with three open sides of viewing. The booth location in the 70s and 80s is lost to time, but we were always up front, next to Avanti, with which we have always enjoyed a great relationship as very complementary lines. MB: We exhibited at every NSS since opening in 1978. SS: How many times have you exhibited at NSS and NY NOW in all? That said, if the card can convey the right sentiment, AND generate an appreciative “wow” from the recipient, then we have really done our job. If it does not do that, it does not matter how amazing the card looks it would not be a good card. GW: To me, the most important factor of a well-designed 3D card is the same as that of a well-designed card in any other format: It must, first and foremost, enable the sender to convey the sentiment and relationship-building content that the sender wants to the recipient. The quality of the paper, printing, finishing, die lines, and hand assembly all separate fantastic from average pop-up cards. The card needs to function effortlessly when opened and closed and result in an emotional response from the recipient. MB: A well-designed 3D card starts with a concept that resonates with the appropriate market it is intended for. SS: How do you differentiate between a well-designed and not so well-designed 3D card? All kidding aside, both of them have navigated the company to release award-winning gems like that you see below. The glimpses you see above into Monika and George’s personalities should give you a hint of what’s to come in their Q&A responses. To this question, George responded, “Let’s see … I was in kindergarten then, so I have no idea …”

We had six internal designers back then, actually the same as today - but we now generate 400+ cards per year with help from an international team of freelancers.” “We all became self-taught (in) Photoshop and Quark, which revolutionized our speed (now) we could design and produce about 25 cards per year. The next year, 1993, the company purchased Macintosh computers, color scanners and color printers, she continued. To start mass production, the original art was sent to the printer to be scanned and generate match prints and film for printing, and the vellum drawings were sent to the diemaker to create the dies.” We’d then engineer the cards by drafting the die lines on vellum and generate numerous hand-cut prototypes to confirm that the design was perfect. The finished prototype was then shared with an illustrator who hand-painted or airbrushed the flat artwork. “It’s hard to believe, but we started each pop-up card by composing collaged mockups using Xerox machines that only printed black and white. “When I started working with the original founders of PopShots, computers weren’t available yet,” recalled Monika Brandrup, VP and Creative Director. We’re venturing into the pre-digital landscape and discussing how pop-up cards were mass-produced - perhaps that is why Popshot’s first release consisted of just six painstakingly designed cards. If we’re going back to 1978 - when I assume a lot of my readers weren’t even alive - be aware that it’s not just American lifestyles that have changed since then. To take us back through the evolution of these brands, I have George White, President & COO, and Monika Brandrup, VP and Creative Director, to answer my many questions. An upcoming Valentine’s release from Up With Paper’s Valentine’s Delighted release - it lights up with the touch of a button! Each cutting-edge, fantastic creation either brand releases adds to a heritage slowly built at May shows. Thus the stories of Up With Paper (or Popshots as it was then known) as well as UWP Luxe, are intrinsically woven into NSS. But that’s nothing … Up With Paper actually started exhibiting there 20 years before I found my way to the press room for the first time. My first National Stationery Show (NSS) was 1998, so I consider myself an old-timer.

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