About Us
Makers of artistic greeting cards & gifts since 1982
In 1982, 57 year-old Ardys Allport published a poster of some very large stones. The poster was a supplement to an art exhibit at her gallery in San Francisco. The artist was renowned realist Alan Magee, whose paintings, even at that time, were out of the price range of most. Ardys firmly believed in educating people about fine art and making museum quality art accessible and affordable to all. She published the poster so that anyone who came to the gallery could leave with something elegant and inspirational—at $20, the poster was a far cry from the original painting's price of $5000.
The poster was remarkably advanced for its time, complementing the work of the artist with its subtle graphic design. Not wanting to overextend herself, Ardys printed just a few of the stones posters, happily sold a dozen or so during the show, and tucked the rest away. Life went on.
Several weeks later she received an interesting phone call. Someone who had seen the poster was inquiring if they could purchase 3000 of them to distribute across the country. She said Yes, cleaned out her garage, ordered 5000 more posters, and Allport Editions was born.
The Allport line quickly grew from one poster to over 30, providing gallery artists with a small but sustainable stream of income, often hard to come by in the fine art industry. Soon blank note cards were added, primarily featuring Maine and Bay Area artists - where Ardys was from. Then greeted and specialty cards were included - each line making its impact in the marketplace and each success propelling the burgeoning little company forward. The combination of art and humor struck a nerve.
Within 10 years, Allport Editions gained acclaim as a world-class publisher of Holiday cards, and that is where we hit our stride. Allport outgrew the tiny garage that originally housed the business, moved twice, and eventually landed in hip, environmentally savvy Portland, OR in 1989. Portland continues to be a most hospitable host to Allport Editions, a company that prides itself on local and conscientious manufacturing practices in a city that does the same.
Over forty years later, Allport has evolved into a leading publisher of artful, funny and intelligent social expression products worldwide. Now employing 12 hard-working, creative humans and one big dog, we've not lost sight of our initial business values. We remain a family-run company that continues to publish cards featuring beautiful hand-rendered artwork from artists worldwide, and we support our products with customer service that treats each person with respect and accommodation–our customers are part of our family.
We value environmentally sustainable and resourceful practices in our production process—making maximum use of minimal resources. We print locally whenever possible, creatively use entire paper sheets (reducing scrap), and we recycle 100% of production wastes. Our cards are printed with veggie-based inks on papers made from sustainable-harvest pulp and a minimum of 30% PCW, and are processed chlorine free. As of 2020, our Portland Warehouse runs on solar energy, to date saving over 145,000 lbs of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
We give back to our community by donating a portion of our holiday card sales to charities and nonprofits, including the ACLU, Mercy Corps, the Humane Society, and many other local and National organizations dear to the hearts of our artists and team.
To those of you who have supported us over the years, we send our heartfelt thanks. We wouldn’t be here without you! To those of you who have just found us —welcome to the family!
