Wrendale Designs, the Lincolnshire-based greeting card and gift brand has been honoured with a Queen’s Award for excellence in International Trade. This top accolade continues to shine a light on the industry’s creative global pre-eminence, with Wrendale Designs following in the wake of Santoro being feted in 2018, The Art File in 2017 and Blue Eyed Sun in 2016.
Wrendale Designs, founded by wife and husband team Hannah and Jack Dale, made its debut as a greeting card publisher at PG Live in 2012 with The Country Set, a greeting card collection based on Hannah’s zoologically correct, but cute nonetheless creations. Since then, the Wrendale Designs’ portfolio has expanded to include a wide range of gift and homewares, including tinware, stationery, textiles and tableware, produced both under the company’s own steam as well as through licensing agreements with other brands.
“We are so thrilled to receive this award – launching our brand and seeing it so well received across the world has been incredibly exciting for us, but we’d like to say an enormous thank you to all of our loyal customers in the UK who have supported us, since we launched Wrendale – without their belief in our brand this would never have been possible,” commented Hannah Dale, who prior to pursuing her artistic talents in the greeting card scene had been a stockbroker.
Hitting the ground running since its debut at PG Live only seven years ago, the Wrendale brand has been on a steep success curve ever since, amassing a huge number of collectors, not just in the UK, but worldwide, as testified by this top export accolade.
Wrendale’s export sales have grown more than 400% over the last three years following the brand’s successful launch in the US, Europe and Japan, as well as growing relationships with distributors elsewhere in the world.
Among the notable brand expansion has been a continuation of the successful collaboration with tableware group Portmeirion, onto many ceramic and kitchen items, including a recently launched dinner service.
While naturally shy and self-deprecating personalities, Hannah and Jack will attend a reception with the Queen at Buckingham Palace in June, before receiving the award at the company’s premises in Brigg from a representative of the Palace.
Wrendale Designs is able to make full use of the award’s endorsement for the next five years.
Top: Hannah and Jack Dale with some of the Portmeirion group licensed products.
