OUR STORY

Lowell Hess... Designer, Paper Engineer and Artist Extraordinaire

“Almost everything that guy ever did makes my head explode.”
- A contemporary illustrator, commenting on Lowell Hess' work.

In a prolific career that spanned 6 decades, Lowell Hess has combined knife, brush and paper with masterful brilliance. An Oklahoma native, Lowell served as a lieutenant in the US Army in Europe during World War II and afterwards attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. During the heyday of magazine illustration Lowell’s work was featured on and between the covers of many national publications, including Collier's and Boy's Life as well as illustrating numerous children’s books for the popular Golden Books series, his work touching millions.

Joining Graphics3 in 1974, Lowell demonstrated an uncanny ability to visualize the transformation of 2-dimensional art into 3-dimensional reality. Where most artists start and finish with a static illustration or sculpture, the pop-up designer's creativity is just beginning, visualizing not only the final dimensional form the paper sculpture will take, but also the intricate means by which it will ultimately fold flat - and return again to full dimension when opened. At Graphics3 we add another layer of sophistication; the innovation of rubber band activation to create cards that move and assemble themselves! 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 completely unique in its design and engineering to assure wonder and surprise are in store for our customer's fortunate recipients.

AWARD WINNING DESIGNS

In 1990 Graphics3 entered seven of Lowell’s pop-up card designs in the International Greeting Card Awards held by the 800 member strong Greeting Card Association in conjunction with the National Stationary Show held in New York City. In the first year entered seven of Lowell’s pop-up card designs were nominated as finalists in seven different categories, every category entered, winning outright in five of those categories and winning the industry’s highest honor, the “Louie” award for ‘Card of The Year’ in the Traditional Christmas Category for his ‘English Toy Shoppe’, a design inspired by Charles Dickens. In 1991, the second and last year entered, another Lowell Hess design again won the top award for Best Traditional Christmas Card. The "Louie Awards" were named in honor of Louie Prang, the father of the Christmas card tradition.

More recently Lowell engaged his creative talents in whittling whimsical wood-carvings, carrying his good humored vision into yet another dimensional medium while in active retirement. Every card we produce is a whimsical reincarnation of the creative process begun in Lowell Hess' studio. Each card is painstakingly assembled by hand in North America for the most important occasions - yours!

The Company

Graphics3 Inc., a Florida corporation, is the proprietary designer, manufacturer and publisher of rubber band activated pop-up greeting cards, calendars and custom pop-up projects. Graphics3 delivers extraordinarily memorable pop-up greeting cards and promotional tools that clamor for attention. Graphics3 was the first to pioneer the use of rubber band activated structural mechanisms that make greeting cards pop-up and we remain the leader in our field. Since 1974 Graphics3 has enabled businesses of every size to create positive relationships, response, awareness and lasting goodwill with pop-up greeting cards during the holidays, pop-up calendars and custom designs for promotional use.

Graphics3's unique expertise is an outgrowth of involvement in the commercial printing business going back to 1935 (Herlin Press, Inc., now GHP, Inc. of West Haven, CT), where a reputation for successfully producing unusually challenging graphic arts projects was established. In 1976 Lowell Hess evolved the concept of Graphics3's very first rubber band activated pop-up greeting card, which we used as our own company Christmas card. This card, now a collectible, was so warmly received by our customers that they, in effect, put us in the greeting card business. Our popular pop-up desk calendar designs have been in continuous production since the business was established in 1974. To ensure consistent quality our calendar production is fully automated in our Florida plant, on machines we developed and patented. Each year we add new designs to our collection and showcase all our current designs in our annual catalog meetings and web site.

Graphics3 offers the intersection of long experience, creativity, leading-edge graphic arts capability, and the essential production control that are essential for professional execution of complex graphic arts projects. From initial design to printing and die cutting operations, critical print production takes place within our own Florida facilities. Assembly is performed under our supervision in North America, providing the control necessary to efficiently manufacture high quality products on timely schedules.