Card Designer Spotlight X The Quilling Card
The Card Designer Spotlight is a series featuring independent makers whose greeting cards you can find in Paper Source stores. Meet and be inspired by a new designer every month on our blog!
Start the new year with inspiration from the Quilling Card Co. and celebrate our featured card designer of the month for January. As we begin our Card Designer Series for 2024, find out what happens when you follow your dreams with a special look into the fine art of quilling, the talents of the design team and artisans in Vietnam as well as fun facts that include the Guinness Book of World Records since their debut on our blog in 2020.
How did the Quilling Card Co. begin?
A native of Vietnam, Quilling Card co-founder Huong Wolf had previously worked in Marketing throughout Southeast Asia and the US for large corporations such as Unilever and L’Oreal. After years working towards someone else’s dream, she decided to leave the industry and pursue her entrepreneurial spirit and passion for the art of quilling. In 2011 Huong and her husband Raphael took this passion and turned it into a flourishing greeting card company – bringing this beautiful art form into the homes of admirers all over the globe.
How do you and your team draw inspiration for the card collections?
The inspiration for each quilled card design can come from nature, wildlife, symbols, holidays and occasions, trends, and even customer suggestions!
What does a day behind the scenes at the Quilling Co. look like for designers and makers?
The design team in the US is very collaborative and works on a wide variety of creative projects on a daily basis including the creation of artwork and designs for our greeting cards, but you can also find the team working in the photo studio creating imagery and videos to showcase our quilled cards and gifts on the website and our social platforms and much more! The creative team at Quilling Card balances daily the creation of new designs and product development with all other creative needs of the business from trade shows, to digital and print advertising, catalog updates and everything else in between! Both the Design Team in Vietnam and the US correspond daily through platforms such as Asana to share new artworks and quilling samples back and forth to develop new designs. Our quillers in Vietnam are highly skilled artisans that work on all different quilled products from greeting cards to ornaments, and our large-scale artist series. They are truly masters of the craft that bring our quilled works of art to life. Each quiller certainly has a favorite design to quill but they are all well versed in the craft to quill any design needed. We recently did a video series with several of our artisans called “Meet the Quillers” that takes you behind the scenes into some of their daily lives. You can view that video series on our youtube channel here.
Do you have a preferred medium? Paper of course!
Tell us about what makes your cards different. (style, process, method, design, etc) Each Quilling Card design is handmade by an artisan at our workshop located in Vietnam. Quilling is a fine art that, to do well, requires much practice and patience. We train each of our artisans to quill at an extraordinarily high level. Prospective quillers complete 6 months of intensive training in order to develop the level of skill necessary to craft each quilled card. During this time, they learn the "alphabet" of quilled shapes used to make a Quilling Card. Overall, it takes half a year to develop the level of ability necessary to craft the quilled cards you give to your friends and loved ones! After successfully graduating from our training program, the artisan can expertly quill each design at the highest level of craftsmanship, faithfully and consistently. On average, it takes one hour to quill each card.
What does your creative process look like?
The designs for our greeting cards can originate in many different forms, sometimes a watercolor painting, a digital illustration, or a colored pencil sketch. The creative team then fine-tunes and edits artworks in digital programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Once the artwork is completed, it is sent to our team of designers in Vietnam to emulate into a quilled sample. Every card begins with a printed artwork that is then reimagined into a handmade quilling design. Using a quilling pen, the artisans will thread strips of kishu paper (a high-quality, Japanese paper) through the tool and coil it around to create a coil that is then manipulated into the shape desired, and glued onto the card over the printed artwork. There are often several drafts of both the printed artworks and quilled application shared between the design team and master quillers until a final version is approved. Once approved, the master quillers make a final production sample for the other quillers to follow. Each design is carefully created and crafted with love and care by our extraordinary team of designers, illustrators, and artisans. The development of each design is truly unique in where the inspiration originated, the creative execution, and its rounds of improvements leading to the final design. When you give a Quilling Card, you are not just giving a greeting card, you are gifting a handmade work of art
What is the Quilling Card Co. most proud of as a business?
Quilling Card is proud to be a Verified Fair Trade Federation Member. We have focused on providing our artisans in Vietnam with fair pay, safe working conditions, and quality benefits. This initiative is at the forefront of our business and especially close to, our founder and CEO, Huong’s heart as she is able to give back to her home country and community. Additionally, on April 8th, 2022, Quilling Card was awarded two Guinness World Record Titles for “Most People Quilling Simultaneously” and “Largest Quilling Paper Mosaic (Image)”. The mosaic image was a recreation of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and stood 15 feet tall and 19 feet wide. It was assembled by piecing together 285 1x1’ quilled tiles. This remarkable work of quilled art was only made possible by the tireless dedication and collaborative effort of our incredible US and Vietnam team members. This project was a defining moment for Quilling Card to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the business and empower us to continue to reach for the stars. Check out the video here.
Any fun facts or special tidbits you would like to share about yourself, the team or the business?
Following the success of our Guinness World Record Titles we launched our Artist Series Collection. Beginning with Starry Night of course, we had such a positive response we have now extended the quilled Artist Series Collection to include a total of 16 renowned works of art in three sizes including Cards, Art, and Gallery sizes. The Artist Series Collection continues to ‘wow’ admirers and has so much more potential we cannot wait to explore.
Find The Quilling Card collection, such as Quilling Colorful Script Birthday Card, Quilling Decorative Swans Love Card,and Quilling Pink Roses Greeting Card at your local store or online at papersource.com. For more inspiration and behind-the-scenes action, follow @quillingcard on IG.
