In an industry where there are very few distributorships, Quire Collections has beefed up its portfolio with the addition of Wildberry Letterpress and Bold Bunny collections.
“It all came about as a result of PG Live,” said David James, who co-owns Quire Collections with Stuart Williams. Having worked together 30 years ago at Athena International (a former card and poster company), David and Stuart joined forces at the start of this year when David bought into the Quire Collections business.
While the company is continuing as the UK distributor for Dutch-based company Quire Publishing, it was David and Stuart’s intention to build on this string base, both as a distributor and publisher.
“We went to PG Live with a view to finding a company to distribute that would complement what we have with Quire Publishing and ended up with two, both lovely products!” said David.
The initial selection from Wildberry Letterpress comprises 16 designs, while 24 designs from the Irish based Bold Bunny are also making their debut from Quire Collections.
Owned by Claire Viner, Wildberry Letterpress specialises in striking tactile greeting cards that are all handprinted on a ‘much loved’ Victorian Wade Arab Letterpress that dates back to 1896, that was found rotting in the depths of Winchester College.
With a tagline of ‘nice things for design-conscious folk’, Dublin-based Bold Bunny has been building its reputation for its design-led greeting cards, stationery, prints and textiles since it was founded in 2011 by graphic designer Ali Jones, while she was on maternity leave from her design consultancy business.
“We are delighted to add Bold Bunny and Wildberry Press to our portfolio, but are on the lookout for more complementary brands to distribute too,” revealed David.
But in addition to its distributorship growth, Quire Collections has also been pursuing its own publishing potential, having just launched a range of fine art greeting cards based on a licensing agreement with Felix Rosenstiel.
The initial collection of 20 designs features impressionist art, selected from Felix Rosenthiel’s vast archive that spans some 20,000 images.
“I knew the Felix Rosenthiel’s business very well, not just from my Athena days, but subsequent roles. It appeared to Stuart and I that there is an appetite for good fine art cards at the moment, so we are delighted to have signed an exclusive licensing agreement with such a respected company,” said David.
