Rush Design A Year at Rush Design

January started with a move to bigger premises and a bright new workspace for owner and designer Lorraine Bradley. “It makes such a difference to have more space and plenty of light in the office. It was a great time to make the move,’’ she says. Hot on the heels of the move, Spring Fair was the first show of the year for Rush Design and always a very important one. “We have done this show every year since 2015 and to date it has always been a great show and bought lots of new opportunities for Rush Design,’’ adds Lorraine. This year was no exception. More than 50 new everyday designs along with a new Christmas collection (51 designs) were launched.

says: “We love the PG Live show. It’s only two days and we always have a good one. This year was no exception.’’ This show saw the launch of the new feminine Aurora collection for Rush Design. This includes some great trending subjects such as women’s football, yoga and Age designs.

Spring Fair 2023 also saw the launch of a gift collection with Joe Davies giftware. This fabulous new collection was very well received among Rush Design customers who rushed over to Joe Davies to get their orders placed. The collection includes wine glasses, gin glasses, beer tankards, mugs and ceramic coasters.

Designs for the giftware were reimagined from two of Rush Design’s bestselling card collections - Blossom and Domino. The full collection of Rush Design giftware is now in stock and available direct from Joe Davies. Customers are already reporting good sales and there are more product releases in the pipeline for 2024. Lorraine comments: “It has been great to work with Joe Davies on these products and very exciting to see them doing so well with retailers. I look forward to working on the next collections”.

With the Spring Fair done and dusted it was straight back to designing new collections and before you knew it PG Live in London was on the horizon. Lorraine

Life at Rush Design is always on the go. So, when a good customer, Hugs & Kisses (Tettenhall), suggested doing the Cardgains Charity Walk, it was not long before the date was put in the diary and training began. Team Rush Design was set up with husband Ian and the sponsorship campaign began. Thankfully the weather in May and June was very good and meant lots of good training walks could be done. Lorraine says: “It was great to be training for such a great cause and with such nice sunny weather too. One of the training walks we did was from the centre of Birmingham to Warwick along the Grand Central canal. Ian told me it was 20 miles so it was not far off the 25 miles the charity walk was going to be. It turned out that it was actually 25 miles due to a calculation error!” The day of the charity walk on June 29 was in London and turned out to be a huge success. Rush Design raised over £1,600 towards the grand total of over £45,000 for the MNDA (Motor Neurone Disease Association).

Moving on through the summer and it was not long before Christmas was starting to show up on the horizon. Christmas always plays a big part for both publishers and retailers alike. Rush Design brings out a new collection each year to ensure that customers are getting something different. The timing of Christmas designing is always a key element in the annual planning process. Lorraine says:

“I like to get the following year’s Christmas designed and finalised before we reach December of the current year. That way it is done and dusted before everything starts getting busy in the new year.’’ Rush Design’s Christmas 2023 Collection One More Sleep has been its most successful Christmas range to date. It is still available to order if you are quick. The collection of more than 50 designs consists mainly of Relations and other captions including Both of You, Special Friend and Thinking of You at Christmas.

The full Christmas collection along with all the Everyday designs can be viewed on the Rush Design website, in the catalogue or you can make an appointment with one of their fabulous agents.

A final word from Lorraine: ‘’Please get in touch if we can assist with your greeting card needs in any way. We look forward to speaking with you or seeing you at one of our next trade shows.’’