We’re super grateful to Harlow Russell of Awesome 3D Cards for his generous sponsorship of our UpClose Series concert featuring Mateusz Kowalski at the home of Chaya Rao on Sunday, February 2nd at 6pm (tickets). Guests will enjoy Chaya’s delicious homemade vegetarian Indian Food, and they’ll also get to take home one of Harlow’s awesome cards! Harlow has a neat story, and we asked him to share some of it.


ACG: How did the idea of 3D cards come to you?

HR: I lived and worked in Asia for the last 25 years, most of my adult life. The last 4 years were in Vietnam. So, I was very familiar with the Vietnamese artform of “Kirigami”. It’s like Japanese Origami, but distinctly different. Kirigami always takes the form of a pop-up gift or thank you card. It contains a 3D paper model inside the card that “folds.” For many years I would always bring back the cool cards when I came home to visit my mother in Austin. In fact, she kept all those cards over the years and would frequently show guests at her house because they were so unique. Real paper art.

I moved back to the USA in 2018 and among other things I had to buy insurance. Once I finally settled on an agent he sent me a thank you card and said I was a VIP customer. The card was a plain white generic card. You know, the kind that come in a stack of 100 at the Dollar stores. I didn’t feel like a VIP with this card. Then it hit me!  What if he had a custom cool Kirigami card! That would be amazing and make me feel special. And I knew everyone always keeps these handmade Kirigami cards because they are totally unique. Hence…Awesome 3D Cards was born!

ACG: What is something you wish everyone knew about the artistry?

HR: The art and skill is the 3D model inside each card. It’s like a Jack in the Box. When people open any of my cards, they smile. They are amazed. They play with the cards. Gen Z or Boomer, male or female, CEO or house sitter, every single person who has received one of my Awesome 3D cards in the last 12 months has had a moment of joy and fun. That’s the special artistry of these custom handmade cards.

ACG: You make a lot of custom designs for people in Austin. Why is it important to you to make special things for our community?

HR: I first lived and work in Austin in the 1980’s. Then I moved west to LA and west again until it became “East”…Jakarta Indonesia, 1992. I always remembered how wonderful Austin was as a young person. My mother retired from Philly to Austin in 1994. So for 25 years, I’ve been coming back “home” to Austin once or twice a year. In early 2018, I came back home to take care of her in her final chapter of life. I loved being back, to the Live Music Capitol of the World, to the BBQ scene, to the “keep Austin Weird” scene. 

When I decided to start my Custom 3D card business, I first produced two Austin-themed concept cards: our beloved, historic, State Capitol Building, and the “Bat Bridge” (Congress Ave. Bridge) – where people from all over the world come to watch our 2 million bats go out on the town every evening. These two cards also demonstrated the skill and fine detail of using Vietnamese Kirigami but in an “Austin” style. Now I create cards for companies and organizations in Austin and across the US and Canada. If you’d like to know more, email me anytime or call 512-571-1615.