2009 National Stationery Show Pt 2: Repping the Alumnus

BBH alumnus Kyle Durrie takes aim at a baby zebra.

In January I had secretly flown former BBH apprentice and employee Kyle Durrie from Portland to NYC to play a practical joke on BBH shop manager Sarah McDonald at the Winter NYIGF. It was a reunion of sorts, as we had done the last ever Toronto Gift Show together as a trio, and had a smoking good time.


Brandon, Kyle, and Sarah at Niagra Falls on the Canadian Side

The results at the NYIGF were similar, as this photo set of a night with Spitfire Girl will demonstrate. The long evening of debauchery ended very abrubtly. Kristin (the Spitfire Girl) and Sarah were doing cartwheels in the hotel hallway while screaming with hysterical laughter. They came back to the room with a very large and empty Star Wars toy box that had mysteriously appeared. Sarah put the box on her head. Kristin took a swing at Sarah's boxed head and sent her flying into the headboard. Seconds later there was a knock on the door and an armed security guard informed us that there were dozens of calls about the noise and the next call they got would result in us being kicked out of the New Yorker. Kristin's fiance Jason escorted Kristin out as if this was something he was used to.


The following morning I found a destroyed ironing board on the floor. "What the hell happened to the ironing board?" I asked. Photos later revealed that I had destroyed it while trying to demontrate how a proposed photo of Kyle being ironed should look.



This card by Kyle's young letterpress outfit makes me insanely jealous.

During Kyle's visit to the Winter NYIGF she frequented "The Arm" to work on her own line of letterpress greeting cards-- when the show was over, and we were chilling at my mother's crib, she showed Sarah and I what she was working on. Kyle had designed several cards for BBH and they are all favorites of mine-- when I saw her most recent work my jaw dropped to the floor. Clearly she was on the road to her own success.

A couple of BBH products by Kyle Durrie



She and I schemed about things over the following months, and this is what we came up with: She would work the booth at the upcoming Stationery Show for free in exchange for booth real estate to hock her wares, I would take a sales rep percentage of her sales, but would take payment in trade for her cards to sell at Blue Barnhouse. Win win win win win.



I'm pretty excited to have her along at the show, especially because I ain't paying her jack!

In all seriousness I'm really proud how far she's come along, we taught her pretty much every aspect of the BBH business model and my hopes are she'll have an easier time rising to the big leagues than we did. The name of her press is Power and Light, located in Portland, Oregon. You can check out some of her work on her etsy store. The store is currently scarce of product but I know she's working her tail off at the moment, and we should see an impressive line of products in her store in the coming weeks. You can also check out her blog here.

Stationery Show Ahoy!

Sarah knocking out some reprints.

For the first time in BBH history I am slacking off before a show. My Hot GF was in town for a month and we've been hanging out/figuring out what it's gonna look like when she gets here this summer. And since the day before she left, I've been sick, in bed, watching an endless barage of Battle Star Galactica. My official first day back was midday tuesday. The January NYIGF was slack enough that new product is not a top priority. I was gonna print some T-shirts myself, but after what Fritz Klinke of NA Graphics dubbed "the Bluebarnhouse economic stimulus package," that same day I decided to hire a friend to make prototypes of 14 different T-shirt designs in time for the Stationery show two Sundays from today (and bought an iPhone that same day). Yes, we make money. But then we immediately spend it on new endeavors.


F-hizzle screens a call.

We printed like 100 new designs since NYIGF August so I'm not sweating too hard about cranking out anything new, though we finally knocked out the colonoscopy card. That might be a good one for Fritz. I'm more worried about being prepared, as more than 20 styles are awaiting reprints currently, and more than 50% are in a 2nd reprint status and requiring larger, more expensive runs. But there are a few new ones coming out, because it is the BBH tradition, but late nights and stressful leave conditions are not in order this time around. The idea is whatever happens, is what will happen. Everything is waiting for us in NY already. Having a booth stored up in NYC is a huge stress relief, as we can just fly in this year, as opposed to the original ordeal of packing up a trailer driving up all day before setup.


Emily reprints Daddy Come Home.

What else. We got pirate wood postcards now. Again, I am paying an assload to someone else to make new product, which is a new thing but I know I can sling them like candy. I really like these cards and figure our audience will too, so I talked to Kristin Sekula of Spitfire Girl fame about buying these cards I designed for her enmasse at a lower rate than what she normally sells them at and reselling them through our own market. They will have her name and manufacturing on it, our sense of humor and design aesthetic. I got a sample before they went to print. They look amazing.


1 of 6 wooden postcards printed in the pirate tradition.

I've said it before that I don't expect much from the NSS this year. And usually when I don't expect too much I get blindsided-- my hope is that the lack of competiton at the shows will bode very well for us this year. More to report on this subject on the Manhattan side here in a week and a half.


Cranking it out the BBH way. All 3 pressses going all day long.

Pirate posting VI: Parrot's Lament, Revisited

For the sixth and final design of the Pirate themed wooden postcards, I reconceptualized the Parrot's Lament card as a full color/in-scene card. This would be a pain in the ass to pull off w/ letterpress, though to be sure the reprint of the letterpress version will be more complex than its current incarnation. Half of the work on this one is already credited to Tyler- so we'll split the royalties on this one.

Also went ahead and knocked out the back of the cards, which looks like so:

All that's left is to confer w/ Kristin at Spitfire Girl about logistics. More than likely they'll be ready for the Stationery Show in May. I've been working on this project non-stop for about 30 hours and am sick of it. Off to bed!

Pirate posting part II: Captain Goodbeard

I hate to stomp on my post from 12 hours ago, in which I proclaimed the glory of a new rap album, which I have not stopped listening to, and it is true, I have not slept yet, but will hopefully soon. But I'm thinking if I write about Spitfire Girl once a day, maybe they'll send me some frigging pictures.


This image is small. To make it large, click on it!

Another wood postcard design for SG. Farrell had this idea:

i feel like that should be one of those corporate posters that have an image of something arbitrary with a caption like: "optimism"

We may just do that, but I'm thinking Arrghptimism.

Also from Farrell, another bit of exciting news in new releases:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/149409-new-wilco-album-coming-in-june
with a pitchfork url, you almost don't need to read the article.

Hey Spitfire Girl!

When the fuck are you going to send us some pics of that one night in the hotel?

Everyone else:
BBH and Spitfire Girl are double teaming a wood postcard project with a pirate theme. Above is the first design, five more coming, including girl and butt pirates!

NYIGF Winter Gift Show Part 3: More cool stuff I couldn't afford but bought anyways.

Wall art from Erin Smith Art that caught my eye, and my wallet.

A week has passed since the show, and we're pretty much caught up on orders, saving those that are dated for later shipment. Sarah has a handful of reprints on her plate, nothing too serious. Farrell and Mike sent out 19 packages on Thursday, all sample updates for our reps, each carrying 50 new designs for 2009 plus a heads up on an across-the-board price hike on our stuff come May. I was kept busy all week by appointments with people I've been putting off for the last month and a half.

Some good stuff that's happened: We picked up a new rep in Ohio at the show. We had a nice flurry of orders come in at the beginning of the week from our Chicago rep, who exhibited at the Winter Chicago Gift Show.

Currently, our rep in San Francisco is showing our line at the San Francisco Gift show. Unfortunately for the Bay Area, the gift show's reputation has been flushed a little further down the pipe with every event, as both attendance and (good) exhibits are in serious decline. No orders reported as of yet but we picked up an Oakland rep as well as one for Reno/Tahoe--both are folks our SF rep networks with regularly.

Our SF rep reported on Friday: "Show only going in to 3rd day today...so far not so good overall. Seems like New York was the only good show this winter. Hope there are some dollars left for SF."

One thing to be sure, we were way in over our heads after the August NYIGF and it took us a few months to recover, but it wasn't just the show, we were riding a wave all summer that crashed on us in September and caught us by surprise, and the shop was overwhelmed with reprints as we ran out of most of the product from 2007.

I think we were a little more prepared to be slapped silly this time, but it's certainly evident that the decline in the economy continues. Next week we contact all our house accounts who normally would have been at the show and let them know we have some cool new stuff and are offering the same show specials to the folks who stayed at home.

Hitting the pavement is what its probably going to take to keep the gears turning this year. I'd be interested to see what the Stationery Show in May brings, whether things will start warming up or continue sliding away. We're already locked in, and I'm preparing to break even.

Anyhow, lets get into the more fun stuff. I couldn't pass up on several lines that were not letterpress, though I smartly staggered their ship dates a month apart so to be not hit over the head with expense. I've also featured some folks we've made friends with at past shows who are doing great work.

O + D

Olga from O+D (offensive & delightful)

Occasionally we are asked if we are familiar w/ O+D, as they too are famous for being an edgy and funny card line sure to piss at least a few people off. They cross the line, but I would say in a more direct and blunt way than we do, as most of our outrageous stuff is being written by someone who lives on the moon.

I would never carry anything that is remotely similar to our work-- and I would say though we share a similar genre we are clearly doing two different things. I think BBH and O+D's work compliments each other with virtually zero crossover as far as ideas go.



ALENA HENNESSY


Alena Hennessy, in the Handmade section, actually has been a client of ours for custom work and calls Asheville her home. Her products are wall art and textiles that incorporate elements of her paintings-we accidentally bumped into each other at our first Atlanta gift show and at that time she was already a seasoned exhibitor, and taught me alot about the world of gift shows when I was still green.



Alena has seen a lot of commercial success and pretty much is in a comfortable place with her clientelle-- though the show went well for her she has decided that after this show she will be taking it easy for a while and spend money she would have spent in New York on catalogues and mailing campaigns.

Maybe BBH will get there one day but until we've either saturated the market or start losing money on the shows, I feel its still worth networking and building our customer base.

ERIN SMITH ART


Erin Smith Art hails from Decatur, GA and was around the corner from Alena in the Handmade Section. She incorporates family photos into collage art that can be bought as wall art or greetings. The prices were reasonable and her designs clearly needed to join our demented family here at the shop. My favorite piece of hers is the headlining image for this post.


MONSTER FACTORY


We met these Canadian kids during the Toronto Show last year and saw them again in New York's Newest this summer. I always stop to talk to these guys because I have a great friend in the plush monster business, John Murphy of Stupid Creatures, who sculpts one-of-a-kind custom monsters out of discarded socks. (He also has occasionally been a guest artist/writer for Blue Barnhouse.)


A Stupid Creature by John Murphy.

We may not see Monster Factory at future US shows, as customs laws for manufactured imports regarding child saftey are about to become very strict and the mountain of paperwork, forms, and expense getting to prove their work meets these standards is more effort than its worth. They are looking into having a similar line manufactured in the US.


NOTED

A build your own ukulele.

I found Noted when former BBH crew member and a great friend of mine, Buzz Poole, paid his usual "visit to the BBH booth before drinks" and took a walk with me at the show. As we were gawking at the sea of crap, he recognized some acquaintances he had worked with via his current post as editor of Mark Batty Publisher. MBP was founded by Mark Batty, former CEO of ITC Fonts and likewise the former editor of arguably the best typography magazine of the 20th century, ITC Font's U&lc. MBP is well known for their books that focus on design and modern culture.


U&lc: Influencing Design & Typography, by Mark Batty Publisher

Noted, who's crew includes a trio of MBP veterans (a writer, a designer, and even a former printer of MBP books), carries a number of cool and inexpensive imports from Japan, most of which require assembly and/or interaction with its recipient; for instance: a build your own Pinhole Camera, mechanized paper art, build your own catapults, and some beautifully crafted gliders.
An animatronic paper Chinese dragon that roars and slashes its tails and claws with the turn of a crank.


Build your own Hishou Glider

Most of what I ordered will double as some fun father and son activities (and at a nice price, for a wholesale buyer) w/ my 7 year old son Toby.

That's about the breadth of what caught my interest at the Gift Show, excepting our favorite crazy kids at Spitfire Girl. Up next, a full length blog about my favorite stop at any given gift show.


Stay tuned for part 4 of the NYIGF report or Spitfire Girl is gonna shred you (and me) a new one.