Announcing the Quilling Card Braille Collection

In celebration of Louis Braille’s birthday we are excited to announce the launch of our new line of Quilled Braille Greeting Cards! Every card in the Braille Collection has been lovingly crafted for the blind by one of our deaf artisans—ensuring that each design is as beautiful to experience by touch as it is by sight. A truly genuine connection through the hand and the heart.

Who Was Louis Braille?

Louis Braille was a French educator and is the inventor of Braille. Louis Braille went blind at the age of 3, in a world where being blind meant having to live a life of virtual illiteracy. Louis invented Braille in 1824 while a student at the Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Children). Today the Braille system remains nearly unchanged from the one that Louis Braille invented and is used by millions worldwide.

What is Braille?

Braille is a standardized tactile written language that is used by the blind and visually impaired. This language consists of raised dots, which represent letters and words. Braille has helped to make the written word accessible to millions of blind people over the years. In the United States Braille is taught to blind children at a young age and Braille signs are posted alongside written signs in many public areas. Braille dots have also been used by artists to depict shapes which blind people are able to feel. Quilled Braille Greeting Cards take this a step further, each card not only has a Quilled image but also a Braille message. According to one of the lead designers on the team; “Creating an interpretation of braille from quilled paper is something that has never been done before and we were fortunate to have the opportunity of collaborating with a School for the Blind in Massachusetts. The innovation of this collection involved substantial research, extensive testing and meticulous designing in order to develop a successful translation of the very standardized braille language.”

 The Braille Collection

The ancient art of quilling can now reach a broader audience with the addition of our quilled Braille Collection. The braille greeting card market is small and lacking diversity; with the addition of our artistic interpretation of braille we hope to provide an exciting new way for the blind to celebrate occasions and special moments. The Braille Collection has a total of sixteen Braille Greeting Cards that cover every stage of one’s life. From a celebratory Birthday Card to a simple Thank You Card, The Braille Collection has a card for every occasion. The development of this collection has been a very special project for Quilling Card co-founder, Huong Wolf. Having built a certified Fair Trade workshop in her home country of Vietnam—where all of the Quilling Card designs are handcrafted—she has spent many years focusing on providing employment opportunities for those who are disadvantaged or have disabilities. This has included the training and employment of over a dozen deaf artisans who directly inspired Huong’s vision of connecting the deaf to the blind through the hands and sense of touch. From the hands of our deaf quillers in Vietnam that coil the strips and meticulously place them into designs, to the eager fingertips of the blind; we are honored and humbled to connect these communities through our Braille Collection.