A Maryland kite maker with a garden line.

Premier Kites is the trading name of Premier Kites & Designs, which describes itself on its own website as a division of Primus Inc. The company says it was established in 1983, and its frequently-asked-questions page gives the same year in answer to how long it has been in business. The same page says it has offices in Hyattsville, Maryland, and in Portsmouth, Ohio.

The company presents itself as a manufacturer of three things at once: kites, garden art and home and garden décor. Its about page says it offers kites and accessories that run from entry-level single-line kites for children and families to more sophisticated models for experienced fliers, and it describes itself as a privately owned business. Premier sells directly through its own online shop, but its FAQ explains that, as a manufacturer, it also sells to retail stores and distributors, and its about page says its products reach the kite, toy, gift and garden trades through a network of distributors and marketing representatives. The site keeps a store locator and a separate wholesale area for authorised dealers.

The name has been online for a long time. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine holds captures of premierkites.com from March 2001, when the page was headed “Premier Kites Inc.” and carried a copyright line dated 2000. Today the same address runs a full catalogue under the longer name Premier Kites & Designs, with a footer copyright line in that name.

Deltas, diamonds, sleds and spinners.

The kite catalogue is broad and organised by shape. Premier’s shop lists deltas in sizes from mini models up to large display deltas, along with diamonds, sleds, parafoils, rokkakus, box and cellular kites, dragon kites, sport kites and travel kites, plus tails, line laundry, line and winders. A separate section gathers specialty kites by designer, where the company groups work credited to named kite makers from the United States and Europe, among them the New Zealand designer Peter Lynn and the Dutch designer Carel van der Sanden. The about page says these collections feature designs from American and European designers that the company describes as unavailable elsewhere.

Technique is the part of the story Premier tells most often. On a page titled “The Premier Difference”, the company says its kites use the back-cut appliqué technique, in which coloured panels of fabric are cut and sewn into the sail rather than printed on to it, and it argues that this “old school” craft gives a depth of colour that printing cannot match. The same page says the company also offers a wide range of printed designs, so the catalogue runs on both methods side by side.

Beyond kites, the company built a second business in the garden. It calls its spinner range WindGarden, and says the spinners and specialty banners are made with what it calls fade-resistant SunTex fabric and fitted with heavy-duty hardware and patented low-friction hubs; it describes them as colourful, moving works of art. The shop sorts the range into hot air balloon spinners, carousel spinners, WhirliGig spinners, bicycle and vehicle spinners, wind wands, weather vanes and windsocks, with deck mounts, ground stakes and poles sold alongside. The company also says it prints on an illuminated fabric as well as PremierSoft, to give a choice of texture and thickness. A third line, Accent Home & Garden, covers house flags and windsocks by a number of artists, which the company says are dye-sublimation printed on its PremierSoft fabric. Most recently, the about page says, Premier added recumbent bike flags, sublimation printed on the same SunTex fabric.

Design and documentation.

Kites and yo-yos are among the simplest objects in the toy trade: a frame and a sail on a line, or two halves joined by an axle and a string. Yet the names behind them range from small workshops and specialist shops to companies that sell through toy chains, sports retailers and their own websites, and some have changed hands more than once along the way.

These are toys that are meant to be performed. Kites are flown in public, on beaches, fields and at festivals, and yo-yos are thrown in front of friends, teachers and contest judges, so their brands often travel through demonstrations, events and the people who use them as much as through packaging. Colour, a clear name and a recognisable shape do much of the work when the product is seen in motion or at a distance.

Each guide separates what independent, dated sources record from what the company says about itself — who started it, who owns it now, where its products are designed and made and how its look has developed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

An art department behind the sail.

Premier treats artwork as part of the product. On “The Premier Difference” page, the company says its graphics team puts each design through a vetting and review process, and that it works with licensed designers, naming Barbara Meyer for kites and David Ti for flags, alongside four in-house Premier designers who create its kites, spinners and flags. The page introduces the company’s art director, who is quoted describing the department’s aim as creating products that inspire wonder for all ages, whether a kite to fly or décor for a house and garden.

The same page describes the person who leads product development as a kite builder who was trained in the craft by Paul E. Garber of the Smithsonian, the company says, and who has built kites for Smithsonian and American Kitefliers Association events.

The catalogue also carries other people’s names and marks. Premier’s shop lists licensed ranges under names that include Old Bay, International Harvester, New Holland and Volkswagen, and it stocks kites under the Into The Wind name. Themed collections cover pets, birds, holidays, seasons, coastal and patriotic subjects.

For a design guide, Premier Kites shows how a kite maker can stretch one craft vocabulary — cut panels of bright cloth set against an open sky — across kites, spinners and flags without losing its look. Compare the German stunt-kite brand in our HQ Kites brand guidelines and the Colorado kite shop in our Into The Wind brand guidelines. For this guide we use kite orange, open sky and marigold with a slab serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Premier Kites’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.