The Paper Fold

For this paper nerd, there are few pleasures in life akin to traveling to market and discovering a standout stationery brand fairly fresh out of the gate. Bromstad Printing Co. was just such a find last month at the *Noted Expo in San Francisco. That's the stationery community's annual wholesale meet-up put on by The Greeting Card Association. The fun kicks off the night before with the Louie Awar...

No matter the brilliance of your offerings, hitting your brand stride takes time. For Alex Gagné of Chez Gagné, reaching her 10th anniversary is the ultimate validation — but that doesn't mean this fantastic founder is slowing down anytime soon. This LA house of design debuted a decade back with just letterpress cards, but has since evolved into a thriving indie lifestyle brand. Every last SKU, fr...

Record stores have a day (April 20), independent bookstores have a day (April 27), and even independent pet stores have a day (September 28). But what about the independent card and gift shop? Thanks to my incredible guest today, now they do! Kristina Burkey of Calliope Paperie in Natick, Massachusetts, is the founder of International Stationery Store Day, celebrated the first Saturday in August....

What does it mean to be a disruptor? For Lauren Miele of KushKards, it means getting people to talk about you when you are not around. And that's precisely how *I* first heard about this cannabis-tinged brand at its National Stationery Show debut in early 2020. There, KushKards distinguished itself out of the gate by winning Best New Product for its Polka Pot Gift Bag — an enormous accomplishment...

Every picture tells a story — unless you are Shannon Martin, of course: Her pictures tell your stories as well. Now celebrating 20 years in business, Shannon Martin Design's signature sepia creations have attained a definite ubiquity and immediate recognition. That's no easy task, and Shannon takes us behind the scenes to share how she consistently churns out distinctive designs by turns heartfelt...

Like all my guests, Dominique Schurman is a paper nerd .... but one with a most distinguished stationery pedigree! In 1950, her father Marcel founded Schurman Fine Papers, which, informed by his global "treasure hunts," brought exquisite stationery artistry and bespoke paper traditions to American shelves. Meanwhile, her mother Margrit opened the first PAPYRUS store in Berkeley, California, in 197...

Can a maker make the world a better place, one gorgeous, handmade sheet of Fair Trade paper at a time? For Chisty Asper, the answer is a resounding yes — and her efforts involve so much more than simply donating a small percentage of her profits to charity. Instead, every last Paper Baristas offering is brewed to do good by careful, complicated design. This Iowa house of paper has a lofty mission:...

It's officially the spooky season, so I've got a triple treat! The actress Jennifer Love Hewitt drops in The Paper Fold along with the power duo that is 2021 Co. — Nicole Couto and Emily King — to talk all things Holiday Junkie. This refers of course to the ever-growing collection the three have collaborated on to celebrate the joy and magic of various holidays — but it's also a certain state of m...

I really like Suzy Ultman’s chutzpah … and you will too, nerds! Suzy is a lifelong and prolific illustrator, card and stationery designer, toy creator, and bookmaker. The simultaneously sophisticated and simple objects that she brings to offbeat life delight young and old alike.  Really, every last one of her playful creations — and even her much-loved Instagram feed — are but a medium through whi...

Where does stellar design begin and end? I used to think I knew the answer, but witnessing the ascension of Girl w/Knife, I've found myself rethinking that. Over the last several years, Elicia Castaldi has sliced not just a singular path through stationery, but home décor and even home design as well. Her stylish wake reveals that rewriting the rules to your own liking is simply a matter of confid...

This month's dynamo guest is a trailblazer in countless senses of the word. Mary Engelbreit debuted at National Stationery Show in 1983 with just a dozen card designs and a decidedly under-decorated booth — but neither that quantity or the booth mattered. Mary paired her distinctive illustrations with clever messaging that transported viewers to an unexpected, charming place — and the world had ne...

The sixth season of The Paper Fold kicks off on a new network — Evergreen — and a slightly different format, but just this once. Instead of focusing on stationery within commerce, I am examining instead stationery within activism, with an admittedly personal bent. When he was just 14, my nephew Sam Schwartz lost his first cousin, Alex Schachter, at the Parkland Massacre on February 14, 2018. In th...

Stop what you are doing this instant, Nerds, and listen up to the newly crowned, Louie Award-winning Writer of the Year! Alyson O'Connor is one half of the decade-old Rust Belt Love Paperie (RBL) team — husband Nick is the other half — but she shapes our stationery community in a big way, all on her own. RBL's greeting cards spotlight the centuries-old letterpress medium exquisitely, and as such a...

Paper nerds, here's the second part of my interview with this one-of-a-kind stationery innovator and disrupter! @emilyonlife and I kick off discussing The Long Table Collective. The collective provides invaluable mentoring for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian artists & creative entrepreneurs as it attempts to even out the design playing field. Five ultra-lucky artists receive one year of profe...

A decade ago, Emily McDowell of Emily McDowell Studio sparked a greeting card revolution and evolution with the release of her Empathy Collection. Her card reading, "There is no good card for this" was both an acknowledgment that the market didn't reflect real life, and a challenge to makers to begin doing just that. Emily's self-named stationery brand would eventually become Em & Friends; in 2022...

For this extra-special episode, my Paper Planes Cocktail Hour Podcast co-host and I decided to try something different. For decades now, Amy Loewenberg and I passed like stationery ships in the night, walking the same shows and stationery shops.  Ironically, we never really got acquainted until lockdown in 2020 — that's when we developed and starting churning out our NY NOW podcast once a month. W...

True progress may occur only at the macro level, but it begins on the micro level. Just ask Sadie Teper, founder of the feminist stationery and gift brand Twentysome Design. Her hand-lettered range draws big laughs as it voices our often unspoken thoughts — just ask her craft fair patrons, or the stores across the country that stock her.  But beneath the humor, the message is always a positive, in...

It's tough getting any stationery brand off the ground, but one that goes an entirely new direction is a real challenge. Just ask Sharon Glassman of Smile Songs. This Brooklyn fashion writer turned Colorado songwriter actually came to stationery circuitously — as she was envisioning a way for her listeners to access her anytime, she actually was planning on making music boxes at first!           S...

What is success exactly? That is the question Kristen Ley began asking herself following the meteoric rise of her paper and gift brand Thimblepress. Taking her creations from Etsy shop to Target shelves in a few short years was a dream come true, but at what cost? Caught up in a mindset of "hurry rush do," Kristen became scattered. "I was spinning out, doing way too much, and not taking care of my...

Most of today's young stationery makers grew up swooning over our medium, but Libby Llanso of Seedlings literally grew up working in our trade. As the daughter of Legacy Publishing Group's Cathy and Carlos Llanso, her childhood was filled with packing orders, attending various markets and helping her mom select art for the next year's release.  But rather than continuing the status quo, when Libby...

If you ever wanted to put your truth out there and hesitated due to the response you feared you’d get, hesitate no longer. Just ask Jocelyn + Roland Kirouac of Ümlaut Brooklyn. Although this range has a reputation for having the proverbial potty mouth, their product actually doesn't contain a lot of profanity.  What it does have, however, is the couple's uncensored and occasionally shocking take o...

If you've ever felt creatively restricted by your corporate job, move over! Brittany O’Brien of Brittany Paige Designs feels your pain, but better yet, she acted on it. She launched her namesake brand in 2017 with six greeting cards — all concerning break-ups — and although the release was small, it proved to be incredibly powerful. With it, Brittany was officially uncensored, untethering herself...

Do you want to unleash that creative powerhouse that resides within you? Then you absolutely cannot miss my chat with Stacie Bloomfield. This design dynamo was just named a 2022 40 Under 40 Honoree by Stationery Trends and Gift Shop Plus magazines, and it will become pretty apparent, pretty quickly, why I gave her a perfect score when I judged the entries.   Stacie literally grew Gingiber, her Ark...

Hold onto your undated planners everyone, Rosanna is here, and my, does she have a lot to spill! When I last checked in with her, pre-pandemic, the founder of this letterpress brand and Los Angeles shop had just lost her husband and co-founder Joel to brain cancer, leaving their 18-month-old  daughter Judith behind as well.  Our stationery community is such that we rallied around Rosanna from arou...

We all know that a life lived in letters is a far richer one, but what about the letter itself? Former university vice president, professor, policy advisor, attorney and poet Wendy Hind tackled this question, and you may be surprised at the results.  The mission of her Tiny Poetry Project is to give, not receive, so for her poems printed on plantable paper, being stationery is just one step in its...