WonderfulGraffiti

A bride from Australia ordered 50 Dark Chocolate invitations. Of those 50, she wants 30 blank. Blank invitations, blank RSVP's, blank envelopes. It is not mine to guess what goes on in the mind of a bride.

Monday Monday

First orders are starting to come in from America' number one home improvement store. Very exciting. 

Getting tons of samples out today for one of our catalog partner's photo shoots. Why do they need six of everything? And some of the samples requested for the photo shoot are not ... any ... we've seen...before.

The boys are doing a minor install tomorrow at Bath & Body Works home office. 

I'm renovating two old dressers my next door neighbor gave me. Can't believe I didn't photograph them first so you can see before and after. One of them was grubby to the extreme. Mouse poop in one of the drawers! Crappy tin drawer pulls turned out to be brass though. That's what I love about old stuff, though. It's always worse/better than you expect. M.

MIldly Amusing Michael Story

When Michael and I started talking about this year's free ornament (we do a new one each year,) we looked at the 2007 and 2008 versions and wanted this year's to look significantly different. And because of the economy, we wanted it to look like it was a significantly better value. We decided that since the previous years' had been round ornaments, we'd try a vertical drop design this year.

So Michael did a variety of designs and they were each beautiful. Two of my favorites had this extravagant flourish embellishment behind them. But when I showed my favorites to production, the swirly thing was a concern. "If we're going to do a lot of them, the swirly thing will slow us down."

So I told Michael to do a few versions without the swirly things. He came back with versions that were even more beautiful. And each had a big swirly thing.

Sometimes production gets the last word. Sometimes it's the designer. Michael won this one. M.

New Free Ornament

Each year for the past three we've offered a different free ornament with every $50 purchase. We're not sure how to test the effectiveness of this promotion but we do it anyway. Sales are pretty good with our 25% off all holiday designs, so I figure, make them giddy.

I think Michael's design is my favorite of all we've done so far. Yes?

 

More Thoughts On Success

Obviously in this economy, Wonderful Graffiti is not doing as well as it was a year ago. In fact, we've had so many cutbacks, it doesn't even feel like the same place. I, being egocentric at all times, tend to think the fault is ours. Despite the news to the contrary, it's easy for me to think we're the only ones struggling out there. Perception is reality, right?

I wrote an earlier entry about Malcolm Gladwell's newest book, Outliers. His premise is that people aren't successful purely of their own accord, but largely because of luck. The era in which you were born, the family you were born into, the people you know have as much if not more influence on success as talent.

Maybe because I've been sensitive to it lately, I've been coming across that concept a lot. And apparently  Malcolm wasn't the first to consider that talent and hard work aren't the only factors of success. 

In 2001, Mary Chapin Carpenter, one of my all-time favorite singer/songwriters (don't call her country) had a great perspective on success in her song The Long Way Home. The pertinent line in this case: "Accidents and inspiration lead you to your destination."

And just be coincidence (or is it luck?) I've been reading Emerson's essay Self-Reliance. "Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events."

I'm trying to live with that reality. While hoping for more than our share of luck. –M

John Our New Intern

We've been involved with  The Graham School here in Columbus since we started Wonderful Graffiti seven years ago. They're a public charter school that emphasizes experiential learning. We've had interns from there almost continuously. Our first one, Andrew, became our first production manager. We've had other great kids, and we've also had some not so great experiences. All of the experiences have been rewarding, from the kids' point of view, I hope, and from ours too, I think.

We tell the kids from the beginning that they can try whatever they want to try here. They can just cut samples for the four hours they're here twice a week. They can file invoices, do the manual part of making Graffiti, learn how to wrap canvases, fold boxes, run the printers and cutters, even take a stab at designing. It's up to them to make their experience fulfilling.

A few years ago, we had this skater dude named Corey. We all adored Corey, but really all he wanted to do was sit at one of the work tables and sketch skateboard designs. Now he's a junior at the Columbus College of Art & Design, NOT a place for slackers. He's popped in to see us about a few marketing projects he's had to do for one class or another, and we're always struck by the transformation. He's so excited about where he's going and how he's going to get there. Go, Corey!

We had another phenomenal kid named Ilseuk. The Graham School told us he wasn't sure he wanted to go to college, even though he was really smart. No kidding. He tried everything there is to do here and he did it perfectly. He PhotoShopped all of the images in our label collection. He designed stickers we still use today. He could run the printers and cutters as well as any of the other full-time guys.

We had to send back the last two kids. But that's part of their experience, right?

Now we have a kid named John. Another keeper. He'll do anything we ask, do it quickly, do it well, do it silently. He doesn't talk much. Today he has to interview as part of his experience project. He gets all A's from me.

Most Sales Kits Delivered

We received enough UPS delivery confirmations today to make us believe that the huge majority of stores received sales kits. Emergency over. We had a few calls from stores that couldn't find their kits but we'd been warned that a few would get lost within stores or whatever, so had a stack of extra kits to send out quickly. All of the stores are required to have all our sales materials in position by Friday.

The people who called in from stores with missing kits were absolutely The Nicest. Every single one. M.