Stationery Trends Magazine

Designer Profile: Alan Friedman

How a reluctant entrepreneur built a large-ish business filling a little-ish niche. By Amanda Avutu, Special to Stationery Trends The first time Alan Friedman's eyes blink at you from the Great Arrow Graphics' Web site, you're sure your mind is playing tricks on you. But like the eyes in the painting that follow Scooby-Doo and the gang, they blink again when you turn away. That's when you know: Alan Friedman is not your typical businessman, and Great Arrow Graphics is not your typical greeting card manufacturer. Originally a T-shirt company, the current incarnation of Great Arrow came about in 1980, when Friedman and his wife, Donna Massimo, bought out their partners. With Friedman's interest in silk-screen printing as an art form on paper, the two started formulating a response to the then-burgeoning counter-culture movement in greeting cards. People were bored with the bland and mass-produced.…  » Read more

---

2009 Spring Editor’s Letter

By Sarah Schwartz, Editor One snowy afternoon in February 2008, I drove from Cleveland to Grand Rapids for a day-long brainstorming session to create Stationery Trends. At that point I had my hopes of how this then-unnamed magazine would present its coverage (in fact, I scribbled notes while driving), but had no idea what the finished product would end up like. A year later finds Stationery Trends less a trade and more a fashion magazine, which to my mind is exactly what the industry needs and desires. The response from our readership — and even the magazine business itself, with Stationery Trends winning a 2008 gold Ozzie for best new design, business-to-business magazine — has been nothing less than incredible, and somewhat overwhelming. Because I generate most of ST's content, I'm often taken for its “face,” while other talented staffers go unrecognized. The quality of…  » Read more

---

Introducing the Publisher’s Advisory Board

Several vendors, NSS manager to aid Stationery trends' staff. By Sarah Schwartz, Editor In our winter issue, we introduced our readers to our Editorial Advisory Board — six retailers and the proprietress of a major Atlanta stationery showroom. Our Publisher's Advisory Board comes from the other side of the coin — that is, those designers and manufacturers who generate the product to fill store shelves. In addition, the inclusion of Patti Stracher, show manager, National Stationery Show (NSS), ensures a vital link to the only show of its kind. The idea behind this board, just like our other one, is that they will share their insights with our magazine staff in order to ensure that our publication continues to stay in step with an ever-shifting marketplace. And with so many knowledgeable industry icons filling this board, it's easy to see this won't be hard for…  » Read more

---

Market Update: It’s All About Value

Even in a gloomy economy, there remain bright spots. By Sarah Schwartz, Editor Bob Dylan would probably agree that you don't have to be a weatherman to realize it seems pretty dark outside. In January, the National Retail Federation (NRF) announced that retail sales would drop 0.5 percent this year, the first decline since the group started tracking them in 1995. And although spending is expected to rebound later this year, shoppers will remain cautious, seeking the best value at the lowest price. That doesn't mean they have forgotten about favorite brands or quality, emphasized style consultant and author Sherrie Mathieson in U.S.A. Today. “The modus operandi of shopping wisely will always need to be a mix of trying to get value at a lesser price and knowing when to go for it.” The independent retailer actually has a bit of an edge. A survey…  » Read more

---

Meet the ‘New” Kate’s

By Sarah Schwartz, Editor Kate's Paperie is arguably to stationers what New York is to America: the tastemaker, the trendsetter — and thus, to many, the standard by which all others are judged. While each has contenders to its throne, both have such distinctive, engrossing voices, you tend to tune out the competition while you're there. The first Kate's Paperie was opened in Manhattan in 1988 by Joe Barreiro and Leonard Flax, and named for Flax's wife. In the ensuing two decades, the venue's success was such that when a new artist or company got in, that company had, in a very important sense, arrived. These days savvy shoppers in Manhattan or Greenwich, Conn., who are looking to personalize their written and printed communications — not to mention their wrapped gifts — know they needn't look farther than Kate's. With a globally sourced giftwrap and…  » Read more

---

The Birmingham Bunch

This 'sweet home in Alabama' has birthed a bevy of stationery designers. By Sarah Schwartz, Editor So, how exactly does one city on the American landscape generate a disproportionately large number of stationery designers? Is it because Birmingham houses the University of Alabama, recently ranked among the top 50 public universities for the eighth consecutive year by U.S. News and World Report? Or because Birmingham is the headquarters for Southern Progress, publishers of Cooking Light, Southern Living and Health, among other publications? Do its many little pockets of restaurants and shops, as well as a thriving art and theater scene, account for it? Or maybe it's because the median age of its 242,820 inhabitants is 34.3, younger than the national average. Perhaps all these factors make Birmingham both the largest city in the state and the home base of a startling number of stationery designers.…  » Read more

---