37th Annual Louie Awards

The Greeting Card Association (GCA) celebrated excellence in greeting cards at its 37th Annual Louie Awards Ceremony. The event took place August 17th at the Seelbach in Louisville, Kentucky. This year’s competition brought together over 1,000 submissions from 185 stationery brands.  

Judging took place at eight hubs across the country, where 78 industry experts ranging from retail buyers to veteran publishers evaluated each card for quality and craftsmanship. From that extensive pool, 168 finalists were selected across 56 categories, showcasing the remarkable talent of 39 standout companies. 

The Louie Awards celebrate the pure creativity and hard work driving our stationery community forward, honoring the exact designs that publishers and artists admire most. This year’s winners really raised the bar. Their cards stand out for their exceptional design and innovative spirit, proving that the craft behind greeting card design is stronger and more thoughtful than ever. 

The ultimate highlights of the evening came with the presentation of the prestigious Card of the Year honors, celebrating the absolute best designs in the competition: 

• Card of the Year Below $5.50 – New Baby: Honeyberry Studios  

• Card of the Year Above $5.50 – Sympathy: Seedlings 
  • Sponsored by  Leader Paper

Beyond the individual card categories, the evening also celebrated the incredible people and publishers driving our industry forward with several major honors. The Rising Star Award, which spotlights outstanding emerging publishers in business for three years or less, went to Barone & Co. When it came to individual creative talents, E. Frances Paper took home the Writer of the Year award for exceptional copywriting and storytelling. To round out the major honors, the coveted Artist of the Year award was presented to Sister Paper Co. in recognition of their remarkable artistic talent and design vision. 

We are so excited to share this year’s Maker of Note Awards recipients! These awards are all about spotlighting and lifting up the incredibly diverse creators and publishers who bring fresh energy and perspective to the greeting card industry. These annual awards highlight incredible publishers and designers from underrepresented communities within our industry. Each maker submitted five of their very best designs, and this year’s recipients were selected based on the highest average scores from our panel of judges. 

2026 Maker of Note Winners: 

• Asian American/Pacific Islander Maker of Note: Yuko Miki, Honeyberry Studios 

• Black Maker of Note: Kristal Bell, KANDS.CO 

• Latinx Maker of Note: Mackenzie + Esteban Raposo, Golden Peach Greetings 

• LGBTQIA+ Maker of Note: Lindsey Warriner, Warren Tales 

The full list of the 37th Annual Louie Award winning cards can be found below and an image gallery of the finalists and winning cards is on the GCA website here. 

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Why Enter the Louie Awards?

Exposure and Visibility!

• Get your cards seen– All submissions are reviewed by our judges panel that is made up of buyers, retailers, members of the press, sales reps and others looking for the best new cards in the industry.
  • Expose your designs to prestigious retail judges from Paper Source, Barnes & Noble, and more.
  • Winners will be announced at *Noted in front of hundreds of retailers.
  • Awards ceremony takes place during *Noted, with winning cards on display.
  • A digital Finalist and Winner’s Kit will be available to help you promote your Louie-winning designs.
  • Be a part of Louie Award Display – Cards that advance to the finalist round will be prominently displayed at the Louies display right at the entrance of *Noted where 600+ retailers will see your cards front and center.
• Learn where you stand – Applicants will receive access to the final scores for each entry as well as any comments from judges.
• Go social – Finalist and winners cards will be showcased on the GCA social media accounts.
• Live on forever – Images of all finalists and winners will remain archived in a Finalist and Winner’s Gallery on the GCA site.

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History of the Louie Awards

Launched in 1988, the “Louies” honor Louis Prang, the German-born Boston lithographer and publisher known as the “Father of the American Christmas Card. Since 1988, the greeting card industry has come together each year to celebrate the best our industry has to offer. Hundreds of companies from around the world enter thousands of their best cards for the chance to win the coveted Louie Award.

One of the best things about the program is the number of new publishers who enter and win each year! The finalists are announced in February, and the GCA promotes every finalist on the web and through social media. The announcement of the finalists gives us an opportunity to share the spotlight with some truly gifted greeting card publishers, designers,  and artists. The excitement continues to build until April when the winners are announced.

That’s only the beginning. Each spring/summer, our fabulous publishers and GCA Associate members come together again to design and build an outstanding awards celebration. This is where the Louie Award winners are announced for the first time. Not even the finalists know who will win, so we encourage all finalists and greeting card professionals to attend! Because our awards program is all about excellence in printing, our volunteers also create the invitations, program, and other items seen each year at the Louie Awards celebration.

Following the Louie Awards celebration, each winner is automatically entered into our annual Consumer’s Choice competition. Through the Consumer’s Choice Awards, Louie Award winners can expect increased exposure, press coverage, and lots of social media attention from thousands of consumers.

You can read more about the judging process and criteria here.

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The Changing Face of the Louies

In 2010, Andy Meehan headed a strategic review to consider ways to refocus the Louie Awards and establish a more modern direction reflective of today’s greeting card industry.

The following year, the Louie Awards, chaired by Katy Greenspan, saw exciting changes, including the addition of new categories, the expansion of the program booklet to include photos of all finalist cards, a stunning new Louies exhibit at the National Stationery Show and a Consumer’s Choice Award.

For the 25th Louie Awards, Monika Brandrup-Thomas chaired the Louie Awards and she continued to build on these enhancements and chose to commemorate the 25th year by recognizing in a special way excellence in greeting card design.

For the 26th Louie Awards, we engaged buyers from major retailers, industry sales reps, stationery bloggers, and magazine editors as judges, continuing to build on the credibility to the competition and attracting companies that may not have previously considered entering. The finalists cards within the Louie Exhibit is centrally located in the Javits Center at the National Stationery Show©, offering increased visibility for the card designers and manufacturers alike. We also expanded the section on the Greeting Card Association’s website to showcase images of the finalists’ and winning cards, along with links to their respective companies’ websites. The Consumer’s Choice Award, given to the winning card receiving the most votes on the LOUIEs Facebook page, continued as well.

Each year, the Louie Awards Committee seeks to engage a diversity of publishers and artists committed to excellence in the social expression industry. To achieve this, we look to increase opportunities for early exposure for those companies named a finalist or a winner, knowing that it enhances the value in being part of the Louie Awards.

We welcome your feedback on ways we can advance, strengthen, and expand the Louie Awards in the years to come.