Juvenile Birthday Endcap: Set #1 | American Greetings - Target Exclusive | 2021
I was approached by the American Greetings team to develop an exclusive juvenile-focused birthday card endcap for Target. The set included 18 designs loosely split between core, girl, and boy concepts. Each card was designed around a unique die-cut edge for a specialty touch. After working in-house (and therefore uncredited) at Target for nine years, it was awesome to finally be featured as an individual!
This trio of cute confections was part of the core cards I designs for the endcap. They were meant to have a broad appeal with gender-neutral icons, bright colors, and sweet sentiments. The interior of each card was patterned with toppings, adding a little fun when opened!
These girl-leaning designs feature adorable animals and a kaleidoscope of color! Inside recipients would find additional poses, new characters, and hand-written sentiments. The rainbow card was the top-seller, and has had a few seasonal iterations as well.
These more boyish cards include adventurers, beasts, and one crazy hamster! This dynamic selection is full of playful energy and a quirky sense of humor. The hamster wound up being a crowd-favorite and was redesigned for the second set - see below!
Playful text was another component of the core cards for this Target endcap. Two of the designs had traditional rectangle shapes with die-cut interiors that revealed art inside. The balloon card had a 3 panel fold-out revealing colorful balloons and confetti throughout!
Above are a few images showing the set in-store, including the signage developed by American Greetings!
Juvenile Birthday Endcap: Set #2 | American Greetings - Target Exclusive | 2022
After a successful launch of the first round of cards, American Greetings suggested renewing the endcap the following year…and Target agreed! I designed a 9 card refresh with art that complimented the top-sellers and built on the successes of the initial set.
Oversized animals and hungry beasts performed well, so I designed additional cards to play up those themes. The unexpected interiors and individualized diecuts turned out great in production, so we carried these stylistic choices into this next set.
I loved the impact of the the 3 panel fold-out balloon card in the original collection so I wanted to incorporate more of this in the update. Several cards have complete fold-out scenes! The above designs were also the first to incorporate transportation which typically performs well for boys.
The younger designs performed best, so I updated a couple of the girl-focused cards to be more jovial and sweet. The hamster from the first set was in the middle of the pack with sales, but still appeared to be a crowd favorite so I put him in a setting that was less gendered - in his hamster ball!