“We draw our design ideas from a wide variety of social and cultural sources, but the creation and production of our pop-up cards is very much an art. Every card is highly unique in its innovative design, from the paper to the rubber band that makes them pop.” – Lowell Hess, after winning ‘Card of the Year’ the first time entered during the Greeting Card Assoc. International Greeting Card Awards. (Read more about Lowell and our awards below.)

Graphics3 popped up 52 years ago out of an expertise in producing dimensional mail for marketing professionals. 

Graphics3's first rubber band-activated pop-up Christmas card was mailed to customers and friends. A gift-like, fully dimensional card that popped itself up like magic on being released from the envelope, no unfolding, an innovation not seen before. The response was so enthusiastic that suddenly we were in the Christmas card business - with a twist, rare in 1974; Graphics3 marketed directly to our own customers, businesses of every type via our own mail catalog, not in stores.

Our marketing and advertising customers saw first-hand how Graphics3's handcrafted, whimsically memorable pop-up Christmas cards brought their brands to life in customer's hands in the most positive way imaginable. Creatively standing out while participating in the largest cultural tradition in the world, Christmas, the season of good will, turns out to be good for business, an ideal way to build relationships and celebrate bigger cultural ideals without being overtly self-promotional.

Originally Graphics3 had a 'business only' focus but when many long time business customers, enamored with the reaction our cards generated for them professionally, wanted to continue the card sending tradition personally things had to change. Who doesn't want to see their Christmas cards collected and hanging from the tree?

Today we still market directly to the people and companies who send our Christmas cards and calendars. The spirit of Christmas is very much alive. We enjoy working directly with our customers. You can order online but when you call, we pick up the phone and endeavor to offer a level service befitting long term relationships.  Graphics3 focus on service has earned us the high privilege of being a trusted part of our customer’s annual holiday celebrations for decades on end. If you have not heard of Graphics3 you may not be on our customer's Christmas lists - or ours yet - but you can be.

Our growing design portfolio of uniquely engineered pop-up card designs is unmatched at keeping our customers on top, season after season, creating countless memories that strengthen relationships like no other greeting cards.

Today, all of our customers enjoy quantity-based pricing, and single-stamp postage.  Most of all, our customers love hearing from their lucky recipients who often have their own gifted collections of Graphics3 pop-up cards on display during the holidays thanks to a uniquely different holiday tradition our customers create with Graphics3.

Graphics3's rubber band-activated pop-up polygon, as seen in our calendar designs, are a crisply geometric 3D pop-up ‘ball’ shape with 14 sides. This design instantly pops up to engage like no flat mail can. Popular for desk calendars, custom printed pop-up greetings, and direct mail promotions that people keep – again, all mailing for a single stamp.

Sophisticated, highly engineered designs of high quality are our hallmark. All of Graphics3’s designs are proudly designed and printed in the USA and produced in North America, satisfaction is guaranteed.  All our designs use recyclable paper from well managed forests. We showcase our collection for customers each year via our catalog and here online. Join our list to receive occasional seasonal email or our annual mail catalog. We do not sell names.

Evolution: Herlin Press Inc., West Haven, CT, USA, 2001, today GHPMedia.

Lowell Hess… paper engineer and illustrator extraordinaire: 

“Almost everything that guy ever did makes my head explode.”

– A contemporary illustrator, commenting on Lowell Hess’  work.

Lowell Hess was the inventive genius behind Graphics3’s original pop-up card designs - a purely and proudly American design innovation. An Oklahoma native, Lowell served as a lieutenant in the US Army in Europe during World War II and later attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. Lowell came of age as an illustrator during the heyday of magazine illustration, his art adorning the covers of Collier’s, New York Magazine, and Boy’s Life as well as the hugely popular children’s Golden Book series, touching the lives of millions - yet illustration was only one facet of his genius.

Lowell possessed an uncanny ability to visualize 3-dimensional transformations from flat 2-dimensional art, combining knife, paper and brush, hand and eye, with brilliance long before computers and lasers. Together with Graphics3, Lowell pioneered the innovation of freestanding pop-up card designs – a hidden rubber band would perform the magic on opening the envelope, no unfolding. A gift tag would carry the greeting - and allow a greeting card to hang as an ornament from the tree! All Graphics3 innovations.

“Card of the Year” - Winner of the International Greeting Card Association Awards.

Graphics3 entered seven of Lowell Hess’s original pop-up card designs for the first time in the International Greeting Card Awards held by the Greeting Card Association in conjunction with the 1990 National Stationary Show in New York City. These “Louie Awards”, so named for the father of the American Christmas card, Louie Prang, are the greeting card industry equivalent of Hollywood’s Emmy, Oscar, or Tony Awards. Actress Mariette Hartley hosted the ceremony in the famed Waldorf-Astoria’ Grand Ballroom.

The first time entered, out of 800 greeting publishers, all seven Lowell Hess designed Graphics3 pop-up cards were nominated as finalists, winning top honors outright in five categories plus winning the industry’s highest honor, the ‘Card of the Year’ for Graphics3's pop-up ‘English Toy Shoppe’, a Charles Dickens inspired Christmas card theme . This design simultaneously also won the award for ‘Best Traditional Christmas Card’. The following year a Graphics3 pop-up Christmas card design again won the ‘Best Traditional Christmas Card’ - all a nice validation for the many Graphics3 customers that have long acclaimed Graphics3 as the makers of the best pop-up cards.