:: nss, a year later ::

i got back yesterday from NSS, which officially ended today. as i said on my facebook page, attending was in many ways very like those scenes in tv shows when characters are being brainwashed: intense visual stimulation, unending interaction, a constant thrumming pulse. i had a new idea with each passing minute. i scribbled notes and put reminders in my phone. i met all kinds of awesome and wonderful people.

then last night i conked out right in the middle of an episode of lost where one of my least favorite characters was about to not die again. that is how tired i was. but i digress.

being that i was walking the show this year after having debuted there last year as an exhibitor, pretty much everyone i spoke to wanted to know two things: was i happy to be walking instead of exhibiting (an enthusiastic yes! qualified by a bit of wistfulness brought on by just how awesome everysinglebooth there was), and did i think exhibiting last year was worth it.

strangely, up until even a few weeks ago i wouldn't have known how to answer the latter question. i would have said something about how i simultaneously learned a lot and felt a lot of resentment about going last year, and how i'm glad i didn't feel obligated to go again this year.

but when someone asked me this question on sunday i was surprised to say that even though it took an entire year to realize it, exhibiting last year was completely worth it. even financially, in the long run.

i think somewhere here on the blog i once figured out that during the 2011 show, i made in sales about 20% of what i had spent on exhibiting, which, as first-time attendance goes, is supposedly decent. unfortunately, i never did make much more than that as a result of the show.

but the certain kind of righteous i was about that financial fiasco (i know the spiel about how you can't look at it that way and it's not about recuperating all of your investment immediately, etc., but to me that seems like, um, crap) led directly to my crazy september experiment which in turn led directly to the sudden realization that i reallyreallyreally needed to start a fine-art short-run print shop.

and here i am a year later with 200% growth for 2012 ytd versus the same time period last year. and all of that only happened because i went to nss. i only had the knowledge to do it, and the confidence, and the contacts, because i'd been serious enough about my business to exhibit. i only heard the things i heard from buyers about my fantastic print quality because i exhibited. i only realized who my ideal customer was because i exhibited. my growth and the new direction things've taken are completely a result of doing nss last year.

and it only took me twelve months to figure that out.

:: confluence ::

oh, i'm brooding tonight, wondering why on earth i insist on doing things in the most difficult way possible.

it's hard to exactly explain, though it's easy to point to what put me here. today brought a series of small events, the confluence of which have given me much to think about. the five events were:

1. getting my snapfish and minted 1099s
2. finishing the irritating job of calculating the dollar-value of my inventory for 2011 year-end (which will be used to calculate COGS (cost of goods sold) on my income taxes)
3. getting an email reminding me that my sales tax will be due soon
4. one of my printers dying
5. being notified by my new landlord, who also rungs a digital print shop, though with a different customer base but also a lot more years' experience, is about to sublet even more of his own space as a cost-cutting measure. he's downsizing his employee base and renting out probably half of his space. he's got dozens of printers, many of which sit unused. 

i'll do my best to explain.

so.

the work i do for minted and snapfish, which my 1099s attest is rewarded financially, requires nothing but couple thousand fonts, a computer, and some design software. it does not require me to file sales tax, do inventory, calculate COGS, buy, repair, and replace printers, or stock paper and envelopes. it doesn't even require me to go out and find customers, or to keep customers happy.

there's always the chance that one of those (major) companies will go bust, or that my work will no longer appeal to their customers, etc. but damn! DAMN! i spend less than 10% of my time on this work. i should just multiple that by ten and i'd be ALL SET. so little overhead. so little payout. why am i not doing that???

the answer, i guess, is that there's something that happens to me when i see other people running successful creative businesses, abuzz with activity, bursting with energy, busy with employees. i want that. i want to make that happen and to stand in the middle of it.

i got an email from the CEO of minted this past december in which she recounted the busy holiday seasons of minted's first years in business -- the year that they realized they were about to hit through-put capacity and had to immediately pull any advertising they could possibly still pull, for one. the year they had to call in their husbands, friends, and family members in order to get everything out the doors.

it sounded like completely wonderful chaos. and i do NOT like chaos.

but its hard to see lots of businesses around me in S-O-S. kodak, for one. my landlord, who maybe isn't in S-O-S exactly but who is definitely in pare-down mode. 

now more than at any other time, even more now than when i shelled out all those big bucks to exhibit at nss let year, i'm standing at the edge of a chasm and i'm about to jump, and while i feel confident that i'll make it to the other side of this particular span, i've got to admit that i can't see what's lurking on the other side.

and with things like COGS and sales tax and dead printers that are more expensive to repair than to replace, i guess it's only natural to take a moment before jumping. and with 1099s showing me the alluring options on this side of the chasm, i suppose i'd be crazy not to be muddled tonight. brooding.

it would be wisest of me to stand here on this side. not only wisest, but possibly healthiest (from a wellness standpoint) and also best (from a mom standpoint). these are things i really believe, not just things i'm supposed to say. i really truly believe that if i could just find a way to stay happy here on this side, i'd be better off. healthier. happier. 

but i can't shake the allure of spanning the chasm. 

i can't stop wanting to be one of the few who takes the leap.

so i guess we all know i'll probably jump.

:: on the question of what my ART is ::

even though i suggested yesterday that there are two halves to the nss story, there are more. more factors that go into deciding how i want to move up up creative forward in 2012 and beyond.

one of the factors is a strange one, and it's one that i'm going to have to deal with before i deal with any of the others.

i said all that stuff i said yesterday about my ideal customers, but there's a way in which perhaps those folks i so badly want to be my customers aren't completely ideal after all. there are things i care quite deeply about that the customers i profiled yesterday don't care as much about. or don't care about at all. or don't value or prioritize financially even if they do possibly care.

and part of the weirdness in the equation is that these are not things i used to care about. they are not things i cared about even a few years ago. and they're things that i even feel a little bit hypocritical caring about.

i really really care about the quality of the final product. i know i "only" print on a pro photo printer, something that, yes, any schmoe with enough money, a USB cable, and the ability to hit cmd-P can do. but i've spent years learning all about the inks and papers that combine to create the very best, most vibrant output. i've cultivated business relationships and have so grown my print volume that i can now order my paper at significant discounts. and i've learned tricks. 

at nss last may i was situated near a company that prints on the same paper i print on, using a comparable (and in fact more expensive and slightly more advanced model) printer and i noticed that their output, while vibrant and dense, was pixelated - and even quite rough in places - around the edges of elements. and immediately i knew exactly why, and it's such an easy thing to correct, but it took me three years to figure out.

after my september experiment, when i was staring down the barrel of a significant number of orders and two printers to print them on, i realized i would never be able to keep up that volume, even though my goal for future volume is actually significantly higher than what came in throughout september. 

and so despite all i've said about in-sourcing and wanting to control the output and the quality and wanting to have my hands on things, i started looking into outsourcing at least some of my printing.

i did crazy amounts of research and found the top five or so recommendations for the kind of work i'm looking to have done and i started requesting samples. i got paper sample books, printed sample books, and i also ordered small opening orders with three shops that had the best paper options for me using my own designs, just so i could compare them with my own output here in the studio.

the first order to arrive came in wrong. the back was printed in the wrong orientation and so arrived misaligned, turned 90 degrees, and cut off on one side. also, the color intensity was weak and there was that pesky rough-edge pixel problem. i requested that the problem be corrected and a week later i got the corrected order. a week! for ten prints that were supposedly expedited. the back was correct this time, but the print quality was the same.

the next order to arrive was actually so ugly i actually gasped when i saw it. it arrived extremely promptly, i'll give them that, but ohmygod i was shocked at what i received. the paper, supposedly a premium matte-finish paper, was shiny. not glossy, mind you. not luster. just kind of shiny. like sort of matte-shiny. it's hard to explain but it's awful. and the trimming isn't square or consistent, and on 5 of the 25 prints, part of the crop marks appear on the top corner. for real. and the whole stack is significantly curled. and oh. the pixelly problem again.

if only i could get my hands on those printers myself, i'm positive i could produce significantly better output. and the trimming? come on.

and the thing is, this quality is acceptable to a lot of people. i got lots of recommendations from graphic designers and photographers i know and trust. these places are the best in the biz.

i did find one place that prints with the same ink and papers i use here in-house: giclee printing on heavy duty fine-art 100% cotton paper. the cost there is $9 for a 5x7 print if you order a minimum of 75, which in order for me to make profitable would have to marked up to about $21 per invitation, envelopes excluded. which makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. perhaps i'm underpricing on these because my market won't support the price i probably should be charging, but certainly they're charging a premium for a level of output that just isn't expected by most.

including my supposedly ideal customers, who i've asked about their printing expectations. what they've told me is that while they are in awe at the quality of my prints, it's just not something they're willing to pay for. it's not a priority for them. they have, in fact, often asked for printable versions that they can have printed at places i'd be appalled to use because the quality is so shoddy. 

and the thing is? until i started doing all of this and learning everything i can about printing in-house, it wasn't a priority for me, either. 

and yeah. i know, i'm not my own ideal customer. i came to this realization awhile ago and i'm pretty good about remembering it. but at the same time, there's something that still nags at me - something that makes me question whether anyone who doesn't have their hands on the goods each day, who isn't a printer themselves, prioritizes the kind of quality i've come to think of as a benchmark.

or, more to the point, are the people who prioritize paper and quality output and the time and expertise it takes to make paper magic happen, are they really at all interested in digital printing? are the people who have the money to spend on this kind of quality, who care deeply about it like i do, are they all really much more interested in letterpress and even screenprinted work?

and further: do i want to make it my job to educate people about the high quality stuff they can get without a letterpress printer? do i want to devote time and energy to creating my own market?

and finally: do i see myself as an artist? a printmaker? or a graphic designer? is the art i create the design (and the design only) or is it the final product?

if it's the final product, which is the model i've been operating under for awhile now without really acknowledging it, then how do i begin to create a desire for the kind of art i'm putting out there? how do i create my own market?

there are, of course, so many other things to consider, like what i can realistically accomplish within the confines of my own set of circumstances. like, from my attic studio, all 150 square feet of it, and my 17 hours a week of daycare plus all my nights and weekends. i need to be making the kind of salary that i could make if i worked a full-time job. that's what my family needs. if that's the case, do i really have the right to focus so much on the quality of the end product when the demand is not (yet, anyway) enough to sustain us? is it responsible of me to set out courting a market i don't yet know how to find or cultivate when there's a market of customers i relate to, know how to reach and inspire, and can find sustainable ways to serve?

or if i'm going to go whole-hog in the direction of artist-slash-printmaker, should i really be setting up shop with a letterpress and trying to really court the customers who are most interested in the kind of work i do? should i start providing both options - the giclee and the letterpress?

but from where? my garage, where an unused 1979 MG takes up space beside nine bikes and a human-powered lawn mower and about sixteen thousand other things? the garage i won't allow my kids in? the one that's unheated, uninsulated, offering no protection for any paper or ink, and in no way shape or form appropriate for the task?

these, my friends, these are the questions that keep me up nights i'm afraid. they're the questions that make decision-making so hard.

:: the other half of the nss story ::

my previous post on nss presented the gut/emotional side of things, because that's kind of what i like to do on this blog. this blog, since it's my personal blog, is the perfect venue for me to talk about - and think through - how intuition, gut reactions, and emotional responses feed into everyday business decisions.

but to be fair - to me and to my business - there is another key factor i'm considering as i ponder nss 2012. a key non-emotional, business-facts kind of factor. 

my ideal customers.

as i've worked through this year with my business, particularly in the months since nss, i've been increasingly aware of the need to get crystal clear on just who i want to be selling to. who i'm focused on attracting, serving, and satisfying.

when you're an artsy-designy type, and when you start out part time and kind of just want to see how and where things go, you don't always spend a lot of time thinking about this part of things. but for me at least, the key to focusing my efforts in a way that will allow me to make this business more sustainable, more profitable, and even more enjoyable is figuring out who i want to work with. who i want to sell to. 

the september experiment was a huge part of this. as i explained in my follow-up post on a practical wedding, i think a big part of the experiment was about nailing down who my ideal customer is and how i can best communicate to her.

there, i wrote this:

"There's sort of a business adage (adage? rule of thumb? bit of advice? moral? truism?) that says you should price for the customer you want. If you want a high-end customer, you need a high-end price. If you want a bargain shopper, you need a bargain price. 

I actually just gave this advice to two separate individuals in the last 48 hours.
At some point early on in this experiment, it occurred to me that at least in part, my goal for this experiment was to do this the other way around: find the customer I wanted and then let that customer set the price. And who was that customer? She was the kind of person who believes in the power of her voice and her dollar; the sort of person who would think carefully before naming a price. She was thoughtful, maybe a little bit rebellious. 

I agonized over my so-called pitch. I worked so hard on the video, on the FAQs. I was selective in which blogs I contacted. I wanted to make this an experiment about ideas more than it was an experiment about how many customers I could bring through the door. I wanted to focus on finding the right name-your-price customers. 

After all, it's just me here. Me and an ex-intern (back to school in September) and a very pregnant sister and a husband neck-deep in prosecuting bad guys. And two young kids in just-part-time daycare. So it's not like I wanted an onslaught. But I did want participation. I told Meg that my biggest fear was that no one would participate."

and the thing is, attending nss really in no way, shape, or form fits into a marketing strategy that speaks to the customer i'm trying to engage. i know it's a big part of becoming a serious and enduring stationery brand, which is why i was so excited to go this year, why i'm glad i went this year, and why i'm still slightly on the fence about attending next year. 

but as i hone my business objectives and focus my efforts, it's pretty clear to me that the six grand i spent on attending this past year could be put to much better use if what i want to do is attract the kinds of customers i want to attract. customers who want to do things their way. young people who seek their inspiration and information online and who haven't stepped foot in a boutique since their moms dragged them there to buy presents for their great aunts. people who want input in the process. people who want to be reassured that their way is the right way, even if its not the traditional way.

so yeah. there's the emotional part. there's the frustration i feel, and the resentment. there's my inclination towards being contrary and stubbornly striking out in my own direction. but there are also solid, logical, intentional reasons that attending nss may not be the best choice for up up creative in 2012, much as attending again would be fun.

i just had to put that out there because i felt like my other post only covered half the story.

:: nss recap, the five months later edition ::

lately i've been making - and talking about making - some small and less-small changes to how this little business of mine works. i'm cutting out the greeting cards, for one thing, because i need more room.

more room in my studio. more room in my schedule. more room in my brain. more room to make other things happen for up up creative.

so this morning, in response to some chit chat about some of the still-to-come changes, brian asked me if we're doing NSS again in may (of 2012). 

i said i let my spot go for now (they wanted my commitment long ago already and i wasn't ready to give it - or my money) and i need to think about it, but that i'd been thinking no.

the thing is, i feel really resentful about attending NSS this year. despite the good feelings i had at the time and all the stuff i said about already thinking about next year's booth and all, when all is said and done i look back at that experience and i'm mad. (for more reactions to the show, see this thread of posts here on the blog.)

right before my crazy name-your-price experiment was first conceived, i sprawled out on my belly on my studio floor (i wouldn't advise this, friends. i'm really not sure when this carpet was installed but i'm positive it was too long ago for anything good to come of sitting on it, let alone lying face-down on it) and i made a little mind map to try to explain to myself why i feel the way i do about NSS.

it's all in cursive and therefore difficult to read in a photo, so i've recreated it for you and made it nice and big. if you click on this small photo (below) you should be able to read the whole big thing (you may have to click on the link and then click on "see original" and THEN once the image opens click it once more to make it full size).

basically i feel conflicted but mostly i feel mad and frustrated. my gut keeps saying NO NO NO even though there are parts of me that feel like it deserves another chance.

brian thinks we should do it. do it differently, but do it. i'm still undecided.

at the end of the day (what a weird saying that is for an event that lasted more or less one week) the event cost me $5775 including hotel and travel (we were lucky that we lived close enough to bring everything ourselves and we also used points to cover about half of our hotel expense, and we totally scrimped and saved as much as we could on things (i.e. fabric walls) but excluding food (no small total in NYC, yo). the week of the show i wrote $1176 in orders, or about 20% of the cost of exhibiting, which is decent for the week of the show for a first timer, or at least i'm told it is.

but i haven't written a single wholesale order since then. 

i've tried, i suppose. i sent follow-ups to over a hundred individuals and shops that expressed interest at the show. i've offered incentives and such. i've been getting good industry press (the editor at stationery trends sends me individual requests for specific images she'd like to include in each issue, for example, and there have been others - a few magazines and such). and oh! i had interest in my calendars from kate's paperie.

but the stars haven't aligned and my heart hasn't been in it. i don't like that i get sales leads emailed to me weekly as a result of my appearances in stationery trends. i don't like adding those names and contact info to my now extensive list of retailers. i don't want to call them or send them anything. i'm a designer, not a sales rep. i like doing certain kinds of marketing directly to the people who will end up with my things in their homes, but i don't like all this sales work trying to convince other people to want to do additional sales work on my behalf. it doesn't feel right. 

so i've got time, still, to decide. i'm sure that in january there will still be spots available for the may 2012 show, just as there were last year when i signed up. but it's hard for me to figure out what could happen to change how i feel about the 2011 experience enough to make me want to give 2012 a go.

:: experiments in radness and contrariety ::

i've worked up post after post trying to get at what's going on with me lately, and by me i mean me-business-me, not plain-old-regular-me.

up up creative things just aren't going well this summer. something hasn't been feeling right. things aren't clicking into place. sales are (way) down. i've been doing quite well lately me-personally, spontaneously dancing like i used to in the days before the post-partum depression left me not-quite-me.  but business-me has been all soul-searchy and angst-y and overall just kind of yucky.

there's a lot to it but mostly i think it's that i don't feel good about the changes i made to my business in the name of attending the national stationery show in may. i had to restructure a lot of things, change my pricing, adopt a different perspective. but more than that i think i had to do a lot of mold-fitting as in "fitting into the stationery industry mold" and i was faced with a lot of not-quite-fitting-the mold and it has left me a bit woozy.

which is weird because i usually totally love not-quite-fitting-the-mold.

i'm the girl who when told the sky is blue likes to say, "well, but let's think about it. in a way isn't the sky really just no color but then when light rays bounce off of" yadda yadda yadda. i'm the girl who likes to complicate things. who likes to do things differently.

i'm the girl who didn't want to plan her wedding until she realized it could be whatever she (and her fiance) wanted it to be.

i'm the girl who works at home AND stays home with the kids AND has the kids in daycare. i'm the have-it-all-and-have-it-my-way girl.

i like being that way. i like being a bit contrary. a bit different, but so relatably so.

going to nss made me start to focus so much on what my peers were up to. to focus on "how things are done" and whatnot. and it has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. and all summer without entirely realizing it, i've been unsure what to do about it.

until finally i decided. the best way to get the bad taste out of my mouth is to do something awesome. to do something totally me. totally simple in a way that aims at complicating things. to do something completely unlike anything i've ever seen. to take off my business-owner hat and put on my taking-on-the-world hat.

i'm not totally ready yet to reveal what i'm going to do, even though my experiment will be debuting at the very-near end of this month. but i'm ready to tell you that it's going to be scary and hopefully really really awesome. and maybequitepossibly a total flop. and also i'd love it if you think you might like to help spread the word and otherwise make this experiment completely rad.

are you in? if so, leave me a comment and i'll be in touch via email.

:: NSS 2011 - the recap edition ::

NSS 2011, a set on flickr. you can click through to see any (or all) of the images at full size.

so, the thing about the stationery show is this: people can ask and ask how it went but i won't really be able to answer that question for awhile. it's not like, say, mowing the lawn, where you start at one end of the yard and you stop at the other end and when you're done the grass is shorter. it's more like inventing a new kind of anti-fertilizer that seeps slowly into the ground and then works on changing the molecular structure of the grass roots so that the grass continues to be healthy and generally productive of oxygen and such, but it doesn't actually grow as tall as quickly.

whether or not your anti-fertilizer works is going to take some time to determine, and even once you determine its effectiveness at slowing the rate of growth of your grass, you might not even know why.

so the general sum-up is this: it felt good being there. i'm already eagerly thinking about next year. i surpassed most of my goals, but i didn't make much actual money. in fact, i didn't even come close to paying for the trip.

yet.

but my mixture has been added to the soil and i do hope to see some results in the coming months. interest was high and people were surprisingly willing to part with their business cards (though i did get my fair share of "actually, i ran out" and "i got on the plane without any by mistake" fibs).

i'd say the things i certainly got out of the show were these:

- i was pleased to discover that i felt like i fit in there -- like i knew generally what i was doing and could answer buyers' questions and speak the lingo and basically hold my own

- it felt so good to meet other people in the biz -- both people i had known online for years and people i just met there at the show. i really really liked making new friends and in fact left feeling quite sad that i don't get to spend more time working side-by-side with these people.

- along those lines, i identify so much more with the artists and artisans than i do with anyone else in my industry. every time a buyer admired the color and quality of one of my cards or posters and asked me whether they were letterpress printed or screenprinted and i told them they were printed digitally (in my studio, i sometimes added, though i knew that this sounded small-fry instead of artisinal), the part of me that knew what that sounded like to them just wanted to cringe. and then run out and buy a press or some screens and lend my work the credibility it apparently needs. that i apparently need. i have a very "i made this with my own two hands" ethic to my business but i think i'm always just the smallest bit plagued by the fact that ultimately, everything i make comes from my printer. i really noticed this at the show more than i ever have elsewhere. it's hard to highlight what i feel is a key element to what makes up up creative unique -- the fact that everything (except for the wrapping paper) really is printed in house much like a letterpress shop or a screenprinting shop -- when to most people digital printing is basically at the bottom of the printer's foodchain, even below offset. this is something i think i'm going to have to deal with one way or another during the next year, managing my own perceptions and managing others' perceptions.

- talking with some folks who have been in business a good deal longer than i have, and who are starting to have a lot more success, it was sototallyandcompletely clear to me that i really want to grow my business. i want to have a building. i want to have employees. but i want to keep the making part of things in-house.

- i really need these stupid bangs to grow faster. i got 'em cut a few months ago in a wild, heated moment thinking, "hey! i'll be sporting these really awesome bangs for the stationery show!" but then i never could get them how i wanted them and i cut them even shorter and then finally just decided to let the little f'ers grow, so at the show they were constantly flopping down into my eyes and generally causing me malaise. plus now every single time i look at a picture from the show i'm going to be reminded of my ridiculously ill-planned bang-cutting experiment. meh.

- i felt like i would have had a more effective show (and written more orders) if i had had a lot fewer things. over the years i've worked hard to diversify the up up creative offerings, adding new calendar designs, bringing in wrapping paper, developing the wedding side of things, creating new greeting cards and stationery sets. but at the show, maybe because it was my debut, i felt like this was a hindrance. i felt like many buyers looked in and thought "i don't easily know how to classify this booth and i don't know how to find the one specific thing i'm looking for." several times it took one of us mentioning the wedding invitations or maybe the calendars for someone to say, "oh! you have invitations? you have calendars? perfect!" things were clearly labeled and organized within the booth, but for buyers walking quickly down the aisle trying to decide whether or not to make the detour into my booth or continue easily and effortlessly toward the next booth they recognized, there was definitely a bit more question mark in the booth than period.

i'm feeling a little bit question marked myself now, actually. but in a good way. in that first graded grad-school paper kind of way. that "okay, this is going to be a whole new game and i'm going to have to figure out how to play it" kind of way.

to which i only have this to say:

game on.

:: up up creative gets fashionable ::

i've got some crazy things coming up in connection with the national stationery show in may. i've had some press inquiries and sample requests and even an interview with a trade magazine. but perhaps the strangest and also possibly the most interesting is that i am providing 45 invitations to be used in a fashion show.

for real.

apparently kate's paperie is hosting an exhibit at the stationery show that will showcase paper dresses from cutting-edge designers as well as fashion design students at new york's lim college, the latter of whom will be competing for cash and the opportunity to have their designs displayed in the kate's paperie windows during fashion week.

the students' work will incorporate products from NSS exhibitors. including up up creative.

i have to send 45 invitations for some fortunate student to incorporate into his or her design. but i'm totally stuck. i can't choose which design to send. part of me is thinking chevron, but then i'm thinking maybe that's too obvious. what do you think? check out the 24 options here and let me know which one you'd like to see made into a garment.

:: hurtling planets and other issues (or, how to plan a gorgeous trade show booth on a budget and a conscience) ::

i have a total of three started-and-aborted blog posts about my trade show booth walls. they are, to say the least, stressing me out.

in planning my booth, my design aesthetic and my eco-commitment have collided in a two-planets-hurtling-through-space kind of way and i've found myself spinning and spinning as a result. what's more, my own personal definition of creativity has me bound and determined to find a way to salvage both planets, to coax them into a friendly peace - to swing them into a tight little orbit around my brand.

the point of impact is this:

in my industry, anyway, the booth is the brand. in fact, it's the brand and its the retail shop that will carry that brand. it's job is to invite buyers into a little world that makes them think of their own shops and think, "this is what is missing. this is what i have been searching for."

walls are a big part of this. they're a big part of how we display our products and a big part of creating that feeling that buyers are browsing their favorite corner paper store, not being herded through aisle after aisle, booth after booth.

and i think that hard walls always look better than fabric or paper ones. hard walls complete the illusion in a way that draped walls just don't. and more than that for me, hard walls contribute to the crisp, clean, minimalist up up creative design aesthetic.

but hard walls are a problem, ecologically speaking. because the gold standard for NSS hard walls is foam-core, and foam-core is more or less not reusable and it's certainly not recyclable. we're talking about 208 square feet of foam core board that is not recyclable and not reusable. and that's just for my booth, which is one in what, a thousand-plus? as someone on some blog i was reading earlier said, it's disposable, which really means it's garbage.

garbage that costs anywhere from $400 to (more typically) $1400 and provides you four whole days of beautiful-walled goodness.

fabric and paper are also options for the walls, but they also tend to look messier, less modern, and much more DIY (and not in that good DIY way). in all of my web-crawling travels i've yet to come across a fabric-walled booth that i thought was amazing.

i want to find a booth like that. i need to. because fabric is such a better option: it's reusable from year to year, it has a smaller footprint, it costs less. it's recyclable, in many cases, and even recycled in some.

fabric booths are, to me, ugly. they are not up up-y in the way that i need them to be for this trade show. but the part of me that believes that the best design comes from constraint also sees this as the ultimate design challenge. it is a problem to be solved, not avoided.

it's hard, though. because these aren't the only constraints. there are rules about what materials can be used at the trade show. rules about what we can carry in and what tools we can use to assemble our booths. and there are budgetary constraints. just reserving the space for this event costs in the thousands and while i could certainly create an ubercool ubereco booth on an unlimited budget, the budget's not just limited but pretty severely so.

and yet a decision has to be made. we're nearing march and it's time to order what needs to be ordered, construct what needs to be constructed. it's time to wrangle these planets into orbit before either one of them begins to implode.

what do you think? should i build birch walls? experiment with stiffened fabric? focus on free-standing shelves? should i order the foam core but find a way to recycle or reuse it after the event? help!

:: trade show bound ::

i've sent in my deposit and gotten my booth number and up up creative is in the national stationery show directory, all of which means it's official: i'm going to the show. no, wait. i'm not just going. i'm exhibiting at the show.

the picture above should give you an idea of how overwhelmed i'm feeling, although i'm simultaneously in awe at how prepared i feel, overall. i mean, i have no idea what i'm doing, what my booth will look like, what i will wear, etc., but i just feel kinda ready.

i feel good.