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Meredithe Stuart-Smith

American designer (1957–)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ121675627
Source-derived summary

Meredithe Stuart-Smith (née Karl; born 1957) is an American designer. She was a major figure in the alternative card movement of the 1980s and has continued to be influential in the subsequent development of greetings cards and lifestyle markets. She is founder of the multi-national children’s lifestyle company Meri Meri. Since 1996 she has lived primarily in the UK.

Early life

Stuart-Smith grew up in Kansas City, near to the headquarters of Hallmark. In 1978 she married the design engineer John P. D'Arcy (1957–1994). They moved to California where Mr. D'Arcy worked for Miller & Kreisel Sound Corporation from 1980 to 1984.

Early career

Stuart-Smith showed an interest in fashion and making things from an early age. In 1985 she started making greetings cards at home and selling them to stores in Los Angeles. There were no hand-made cards in the market at that time.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Meredithe Stuart-Smith” as american designer (1957–). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1957, 1996, 1978, 1994—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Meredithe, Stuart-Smith and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american designer (1957–). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q121675627. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1996, 1978 and 1994.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Meredithe Stuart-Smith”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Meredithe Stuart-Smith primary sources, Meredithe Stuart-Smith archive and Meredithe research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Meredithe Stuart-Smith”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Meredithe Stuart-Smith” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.