National Stationery Show Checklist 2015 - Part 2

I will probably never write a series again, as it's now end of July and I still haven't posted all the parts. Here's part 2.

This in a nutshell is what I learned in order of importance to get prepped for the show.

• Cohesive collection of Product
• Clear brand identity and vision for your booth
• Signage with your Brand Name and Booth Number
• Great product photography ( I'm not saying I had this by any means but it's important your catalog looks professional)
• Mailer to send to prospective stores
• Catalog (Big huge time commitment do not leave till the last minute)
• Business Cards
• NCR Forms for Orders
• Promo items for giveaways
• Press Kit ( I ran out of time and didn't have one)

Great resources for info/visuals:
Oh so beautiful paper Blog
NSS website
Tradeshow Bootcamp Blog
Pinterest (of course)
Instagram #nss2015 #nss2014 (you get the idea)

I managed to send out some mailers to potential stores which was a small miracle, given time crunch...

Envelopes for mailer and takeaway biz card.

You know it's going to be a good day when the stamps inadvertently perfectly match your striped envelopes.

Giveaways - A lot of people do totes and pins. I did a very limited edition number of totes and some pins and clips which people seemed to be excited about.

Er, yes I printed these the morning I flew out !!

20 Caffeine fueled hours later and a catalog was born.

I work best under pressure but do yourself a huge favor and don't leave your catalog till the last minute. It was worth doing NSS for this exercise alone, suddenly I had SKU numbers, categories for over 100 random cards and once this was done it was a HUGE relief. 16 pages of blood, sweat and tears and the odd typo. I put the booth number on front cover. I printed 45 of these and gave them out to people who asked for one. I had about 3 on display and having done my research found this to be fine. I even emailed people PDF copies so they wouldn't have to carry more paper around. I would take more next time, but I had a plan of action if I ran out. My lovely artist friend Thinh Nguyen took this photo and when at the last minute literally 2 days before I flew to New York I was searching for a cover pic this one, with some Photoshop magic did the trick.

Did not think this was going to happen, but glad I had them !

NCR Forms, basically a 2 part form to write orders on, so that the buyer can take a copy with them. I had mine done at a local copy shop, cheap and quick. Once I realized you could actually buy the paper itself it dawned on me that copy shops must do them. Most of the online places were around $40 + shipping for 100. I was optimistic I'd take some orders but opted for 40 forms which cost me $8.

The National Stationery Show NSS 2015 - The Preparations Part 1

At the start of the year my big business goal was to take my brand national. Part of this plan included doing THE tradeshow for stationery, the National Stationery Show. To the uninitiated this is a BIG deal and unlike the craft shows has a 3 day set up period and the show lasts three and a half days.

It took me a while to commit (late February) but a few things fell into place and it seemed like the right time to take the plunge. Due to the lateness I had already committed to Renegade London and Unique LA which meant I was crunched for time. It's only me making/packaging/shipping all the inventory. For 2 1/2 months it was 7 day work weeks and for the last 3 weeks an average of 5 hours sleep a night. For me, one of the biggest benefits of doing a trade show was the deadline, after investing in a booth you don't want to waste that oney by not having a linesheet, catalog etc. At the start I read every blog post relating to NSS that I could find and started a pinterest mood board.

 As I was on a modest budget for the show I didn't want the added expense of freight shipping this can cost 1,000 each way to ship a crate,  so this booth needed to fit in a big suitcase. I was lucky enough to find someone who lived in New York and would be in London during the show, through a friend and saved a heap in accommodation. I was able to have IKEA furniture shipped to the apartment in New York which was a big relief to not have to go shopping during set up.

So this is how it began with some wonky lines and questionable perspective on a large piece of paper. I had a minor attempt at a mood board but ended up sticking 3 things to it and mostly just kept ideas kicking around in my head. The process was not unfamiliar, back in the day when I did my BA Fine Art Show or studio shows in London it was a similar amount of planning and frantic making in the lead up and it all mostly came together in the end. I think I probably averaged 5 hours sleep a night in the final weeks lead up, not through lack of trying to sleep more, my brain was just over saturated with to do lists and tight deadlines. Alongside this was still the day to day business stuff too. Shops decided to place wholesale orders which was great but made things even more hectic.

Some people do full booth mock ups with walls, (alas there was no space to do this) I made do with large sheets of paper cut to size and placed on the floor, I then started laying out product. Not the most ideal prep, but it does help to lay it all out, I didn't want any super high or low shelves and it helped to see the signage in proportion to the mock wall. I realized my original booth numbers were giganto and didn't use them.

Thought at the time... how the hell am I going to put up 100+ cards by myself !

Notice the not so helpful helper walking all over my walls !

Testing sticking power of glue dots

Yeah,  I ended up having major issues in the end with keeping stuff stuck to the fake walls at NSS, I went through, glue dots, double sided tape (two kinds) and then finally Industrial Velcro.  My point is be prepared, some things don't turn out as you would expect so be prepared to improvise.

Mounting the cards took 2 days

Card Armageddon

So I ended up with about 130 designs up on the walls and grouped them into : Birthday, Love, Friends, Holidays, Baby, Wedding, hello, thank you and other. When you have a Footmoose card you need an other category !

Laser Cut and Spray Painted Numbers

Signage was one of the easiest things for me, all the blogs said put your booth number on everything so people can find you, quite right too, Javits is a huge overwhelming space, you can get lost going to the restroom!
In Part 2, the hard stuff and to do list.

Prepping for UNIQUE LA and new stuff

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks which included a 2 week vacation to visit the family in London and then playing catch up ever since. Unique LA is in a week's time from now May 3 & 4, arggghhhh! I am so fortunate to be sharing a booth with the Uber skilled Kevin from Silicate Studio a man with a wood shop, great vision and a lot of tools.

This is part of the signage, I must draw will be the main header.

I finished signage last night, laser cut of course and will do a whole post on the build. Product wise, a new card line on white, more hand lettered than my usual cheeky pun offerings. Having switched from the mighty ink pen to a brush of late, I've naturally made this transition and I'm excited.

New woodland creatures will be making their debut at Unique along with some new card designs and possibly some mobiles but why don't I just post some pictures already !

From sketch to Product

New Bunny - I'm a magnet

Medals for Mother's and Father's Day

Hand lettered, I'll probably print a colored version on white.