Flash Back Friday / My Greeting Card Days

Back in the Mid 1990's I was working full time as an independent greeting card designer. Each year I would go to the National Stationery show in New York.  Those were fun days. One of my best pals at the time was also a card designer and we both worked constantly. I learned a lot about design, production and marketing during those days.  I also learned that I could work alone in a business and yet still figure out a way to have collaborators and co-workers beyond the confines of my home office.

This was our first New York show. I had my first Paper Chase order that year and had to come home and figure out production very quickly. Paper Chase is a chain stationery store in England and they would order several dozen designs and within each style would be a required quantity of like one dozen - dozen, so literally hundreds of cards.  A Paper Chase order would make my year.

Notice the card board display! It was back in the day of recycled everything and brown kraft paper was very in. We left our display behind and only had to pack our card decks.

Skinny girl in vintage suit, showing off legs! I was in my early 30's.  This is Michael, he was my mentor and best friend. It was during a press check with him late one evening that I ran into my husband Dan again, and we reconnected after having dated briefly in college. Michael also gave me my very first employee and current employee Lola. She had worked for him when he ran and owned a gift shop here in Dallas.

This is Mark, he is an artist that showed with us and he later became one of our card reps. I think this was our 2nd year at the show. The following year we had a bigger space and some stunning shear aqua fabric as a back drop. The display boards above are made of metal flashing, black coroplast, and cardboard.  The following year we used translucent coroplast and it was very cool looking.