December 21, 2015
happy holidays from Ink+Smog Editions
We're winding down for the holidays this week so from our tiny family to yours, happy holidays!
November 30, 2015
Ink+Smog Editions Gift Guide
Here are some gift ideas from local Los Angeles makers that we love!
1. Long fringe necklace - cobalt+natural ombre by Cathy Callahan
2. Hexagon Dreams iPhone 5s case by Abstract Graph Designs
3. Mini Bauhaus kids t-shirt by Tiny Modernism
4. Maru organic baby one-piece in neon pink and orange by Belly Sesame
5. Brass triangle ring by Honey My Heart
6. Cinerama Dome print by Ink+Smog Editions
7. Brushstroke Linen tea towel by Cotton & Flax
8. Ring Mountain in Lavender and Ring Mountain in Yellow and White by Funsize Ceramics
9. Balsam Fir Sachets in Indigo Dyed Linen set of 2 by Minor Thread
1. Long fringe necklace - cobalt+natural ombre by Cathy Callahan
2. Hexagon Dreams iPhone 5s case by Abstract Graph Designs
3. Mini Bauhaus kids t-shirt by Tiny Modernism
4. Maru organic baby one-piece in neon pink and orange by Belly Sesame
5. Brass triangle ring by Honey My Heart
6. Cinerama Dome print by Ink+Smog Editions
7. Brushstroke Linen tea towel by Cotton & Flax
8. Ring Mountain in Lavender and Ring Mountain in Yellow and White by Funsize Ceramics
9. Balsam Fir Sachets in Indigo Dyed Linen set of 2 by Minor Thread
November 24, 2015
where to find us this winter
It still doesn't feel much like fall here in Southern California, we've been enjoying warm dry days and only somewhat cooler evenings for the past few weeks. But that time of year is right around the corner, in fact it's here already!
Take a quick look at where we'll be popping up over the next few weeks, and if you're in Los Angeles come say hi! We'd love to see you and catch up!
Makers Market // West Elm // Saturday November 28 // 8366 Beverly Blvd. 90048
Our first event of the season is the Makers Market at West Elm on small business Saturday, coordinated by the Academy of Handmade. Come on by to see some of the new items that we'll be previewing and to support the local economy.
You can RSVP here!
Holiday Marketplace // Grand Central Market // December 5-6 // 317 S. Broadway // 9a-6p
We'll also be taking part in the second annual Holiday Marketplace at Grand Central Market in DTLA. We LOVE Grand Central, it's a favorite place to eat out and bring friends and family when they visit. We're really looking forward to spending two whole days there!
We'll also be offering a very special limited edition Grand Central Market neon sign print as well as debuting even more new paper goods. Come say hi and see what we've been working on!
Holiday Pop-Up // LA County Store // December 12-13 // 4333 W. Sunset Blvd. // 12-4p
The third and final event of the season for us this year, will be a pop-up at the lovely Los Angeles County Store in Silverlake! Come say hello and get your letterpress calendars before they disappear in 2016! We will be setting up shop on the Saturday of the two day event.
You can RSVP here!
We're spending lots of time in the studio these days, working on new items that will launch in 2016 as well as printing up some new pieces that we'll have with us this winter.
Looking forward to seeing you soon!
Best,
Rosemary+Robin
Take a quick look at where we'll be popping up over the next few weeks, and if you're in Los Angeles come say hi! We'd love to see you and catch up!
Makers Market // West Elm // Saturday November 28 // 8366 Beverly Blvd. 90048
Our first event of the season is the Makers Market at West Elm on small business Saturday, coordinated by the Academy of Handmade. Come on by to see some of the new items that we'll be previewing and to support the local economy.
You can RSVP here!
We'll also be taking part in the second annual Holiday Marketplace at Grand Central Market in DTLA. We LOVE Grand Central, it's a favorite place to eat out and bring friends and family when they visit. We're really looking forward to spending two whole days there!
We'll also be offering a very special limited edition Grand Central Market neon sign print as well as debuting even more new paper goods. Come say hi and see what we've been working on!
Holiday Pop-Up // LA County Store // December 12-13 // 4333 W. Sunset Blvd. // 12-4p
The third and final event of the season for us this year, will be a pop-up at the lovely Los Angeles County Store in Silverlake! Come say hello and get your letterpress calendars before they disappear in 2016! We will be setting up shop on the Saturday of the two day event.
You can RSVP here!
We're spending lots of time in the studio these days, working on new items that will launch in 2016 as well as printing up some new pieces that we'll have with us this winter.
Looking forward to seeing you soon!
Best,
Rosemary+Robin
November 23, 2015
what we're reading these days
On the heels of our busy October, we've been laying low as much as this busy holiday season will allow. One of the things we've been doing is catching up on our reading. Here's a little taste of what we've been perusing.
November 16, 2015
3 things that are inspiring us this week
watercolor
Both of us come from a fine art backgrounds. In fact, we met while we were both getting our Masters of Fine Arts at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan just outside of Detroit. We take turns photographing, sketching out ideas, drawing out designs, carving out linoleum and creating vector images for all of our projects.
Lately, we've been drawn to including watercolor in our letterpress designs. There's something about the tactility, the unpredictability and the variation in color. We think it works really well with the crisp, bold imprint of letterpress. Stay tuned for some new watercolor/letterpress projects in the new year!
changing seasons
The little dips of cooler weather we've been getting here in Los Angeles have our minds turning to comfy, cozy thoughts. Our fingers are crossed for the cool rainy weather promised for later this year by the El Nino weather system that should be headed our way this winter. In the meantime, we're enjoying the warm sunny days and cool nights.
Stanislav Pinchuk's delicate hand poked tattoos
We have both fallen in love with the tattoo work of Ukranian-born artist Stanislava Pinchuk (who goes by Miso). She has been trading hand-poked tattoos for things she wants or needs for the last few years. We love the delicate lines and intimate scale of these mini works of art.
Both of us come from a fine art backgrounds. In fact, we met while we were both getting our Masters of Fine Arts at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan just outside of Detroit. We take turns photographing, sketching out ideas, drawing out designs, carving out linoleum and creating vector images for all of our projects.
Lately, we've been drawn to including watercolor in our letterpress designs. There's something about the tactility, the unpredictability and the variation in color. We think it works really well with the crisp, bold imprint of letterpress. Stay tuned for some new watercolor/letterpress projects in the new year!
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| Sketching out some watercolor ideas. We've been very inspired by our summer seasonal Heath Ceramics vase, we love the splatters of glaze! |
changing seasons
The little dips of cooler weather we've been getting here in Los Angeles have our minds turning to comfy, cozy thoughts. Our fingers are crossed for the cool rainy weather promised for later this year by the El Nino weather system that should be headed our way this winter. In the meantime, we're enjoying the warm sunny days and cool nights.
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| A rainy day outside of our studio in DTLA. |
Stanislav Pinchuk's delicate hand poked tattoos
We have both fallen in love with the tattoo work of Ukranian-born artist Stanislava Pinchuk (who goes by Miso). She has been trading hand-poked tattoos for things she wants or needs for the last few years. We love the delicate lines and intimate scale of these mini works of art.
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| Home-made tattoos: A map walking the New York Highline drawn from memory, as a constellation. On my beautiful studio mate @karleee. Traded for a bright white crystal that looks just like a skyscraper. (photo: Stanislav Pinchuk, @m_i_s_o on Instagram) |
November 12, 2015
what we've been up to lately
Thank you to everyone who turned out to see us on Saturday at Eastside Handmade in Highland Park. As always, it's great to see you and meet you all in person!
Sorry for the lack of posts lately, we needed to take a little bit of a break from the blog after our October small business cleanse. We've also been busy getting ready for some holiday popups and getting to work on our new collection that will launch in early 2016!
One of the questions we've been getting a lot, both at Eastside Handmade and on social media, is how we dyed the table cloth for our new display. So we thought that we'd share a few of the pictures from our experience with ice dying. You can also take a look at the ice dying instructions from Food 52. Or check out our project idea board on Pinterest for more fun projects we're thinking about doing.
Our first step was to run our fabric through a wash cycle, then we soaked everything with soda ash. After wringing our fabric out by hand, we arranged it on dollar store wire cooling racks set atop aluminum foil containers. We then covered our fabric in ice cubes, and sprinkled the indigo dye on top. It's a good idea to sprinkle lightly at first and then add a little more here and there to create areas of more intense color. As the ice melts, the dye disperses into the fabric. We let the ice and dye do their work for about 24 hours. Then we washed everything out by hand until the water ran clear and put it all through the washing machine with some soap. And that is pretty much that. It was a really fun project. And we think it matches our 2016 indigo watercolor letterpress calendar perfectly! Each calendar was embellished with a watercolor flourish before it was put back through the press. We love how they turned out. They've been super popular, but there are only a limited number of them so hurry and get yours before they run out!
We hope you're having a good fall, it's been on the warm side here for the past few weeks. We're very much enjoying the cool turn the weather has taken over the past few days, its just the right kind of weather for printing!
Best,
Rosemary+Robin
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| The view from our table at Eastside Handmade. |
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| L-R: our set up at Eastside Handmade with our indigo ice dyed table cloth, our 2016 indigo watercolor and letterpress California calendar. |
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| L-R: fabric covered in ice, indigo sprinkled over the ice cubes, the finished product. |
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| L-R: 2016 calendars, Rosemary painting the watercolor flourish with help from the babe, a close up of the watercolor embellishment. |
Best,
Rosemary+Robin
November 01, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 30+1
Yesterday: Yay! You made it! Take a look at the list of goals you made on Day 2. Where have you succeeded and where have you come up short? What 3 steps can you undertake to maintain this momentum or what can you do to help you reach your goals if you weren’t able to within these 30 days.
It's hard to believe that we've only been working on this project for thirty days! We've learned so much over the past month, both about our business and about ourselves. We have a much better understanding of where we were, where we are, and where we're going.
Looking back over our list of goals for this cleanse, we've definitely made some headway on all of them. We're much better organized than we were, we've cleaned out a lot of the dead wood and identified other areas that we weren't aware of that need a good airing out. We have a much better understanding of where we are, and a clearer idea of where we want to be. And we are putting our new mantra into practice, asking ourselves before we start a task, are we working smarter, or just harder.
All in all, it's been a very successful exercise. We feel much more responsible about how we're running our business, we've gone back to better work habits and we're incredibly excited about the future.
Thank you so much for tagging along, we can't wait to show you what we have in store over the next few months, so stay tuned!
Best,
Rosemary+Robin
It's hard to believe that we've only been working on this project for thirty days! We've learned so much over the past month, both about our business and about ourselves. We have a much better understanding of where we were, where we are, and where we're going.
Looking back over our list of goals for this cleanse, we've definitely made some headway on all of them. We're much better organized than we were, we've cleaned out a lot of the dead wood and identified other areas that we weren't aware of that need a good airing out. We have a much better understanding of where we are, and a clearer idea of where we want to be. And we are putting our new mantra into practice, asking ourselves before we start a task, are we working smarter, or just harder.
All in all, it's been a very successful exercise. We feel much more responsible about how we're running our business, we've gone back to better work habits and we're incredibly excited about the future.
Thank you so much for tagging along, we can't wait to show you what we have in store over the next few months, so stay tuned!
Best,
Rosemary+Robin
October 31, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 30
We just wanted to start off by thanking everyone for their support over the past 29 days! This has been an amazing, sometimes grueling experience and we are so appreciative of all of your support! Sitting down and working on these assignments isn't easy. This was quite the undertaking with a small babe and a business to run while working other jobs. It's been a lot of late nights and early mornings, but it has been worth all of the hard work. To anyone thinking about doing something similar, do it!!! It's hard work, but the reward is so great!
Yesterday: What does your marketing plan look like? If you haven’t looked at it in a while, now is the time. Make sure that it reflects the changes in your mission statement and business plan as well as what you’ve learned from your analytics. If you don’t have a marketing plan yet, now is the time to come up with one!
The last few years have been a little crazy. Two years ago, we were launching our Kickstarter campaign, moving ourselves and our studio, meeting wholesale and retail orders, and getting ready to do all the holiday shows that we'd signed up for. Last year, Rosemary was almost completely out of commission, and Robin was trying to take care of everything life and business related. This is the first time in two years that we've been able to sit down and come up with a schedule for the next twelve months without it being completely destroyed before it even begins.
We approached this exercise the old school way, with pen and paper. We started off by choosing three marketing goals for the coming year. Then we divided a piece of paper into three columns with the months of the year. Our next step was to add any deadlines, important commitments, vacation time etc. Then we chose what our ideal launch deadlines would be for 2016.
From there, everything just sort of fell into place. It's still just a rough draft, we'll be refining it over the next few weeks, and trying it out over this next year. Some things will work out the way we planned, others just simply won't and we'll have to figure out how to schedule those differently. Either way, it's a good start.
Today: Yay! You made it! Take a look at the list of goals you made on Day 2. Where have you succeeded and where have you come up short? What 3 steps can you undertake to maintain this momentum or what can you do to help you reach your goals if you weren’t able to within these 30 days.
Yesterday: What does your marketing plan look like? If you haven’t looked at it in a while, now is the time. Make sure that it reflects the changes in your mission statement and business plan as well as what you’ve learned from your analytics. If you don’t have a marketing plan yet, now is the time to come up with one!
The last few years have been a little crazy. Two years ago, we were launching our Kickstarter campaign, moving ourselves and our studio, meeting wholesale and retail orders, and getting ready to do all the holiday shows that we'd signed up for. Last year, Rosemary was almost completely out of commission, and Robin was trying to take care of everything life and business related. This is the first time in two years that we've been able to sit down and come up with a schedule for the next twelve months without it being completely destroyed before it even begins.
We approached this exercise the old school way, with pen and paper. We started off by choosing three marketing goals for the coming year. Then we divided a piece of paper into three columns with the months of the year. Our next step was to add any deadlines, important commitments, vacation time etc. Then we chose what our ideal launch deadlines would be for 2016.
From there, everything just sort of fell into place. It's still just a rough draft, we'll be refining it over the next few weeks, and trying it out over this next year. Some things will work out the way we planned, others just simply won't and we'll have to figure out how to schedule those differently. Either way, it's a good start.
Today: Yay! You made it! Take a look at the list of goals you made on Day 2. Where have you succeeded and where have you come up short? What 3 steps can you undertake to maintain this momentum or what can you do to help you reach your goals if you weren’t able to within these 30 days.
October 30, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 29
It's so crazy, we're already at day 29!!! Nearly there, we're in the home stretch!
Yesterday: Take a look at your analytics. Where is your traffic coming from? What are your most popular posts, items or pages. Why is that? What are your least popular posts, items or pages. Why is that? Where are you putting your energy and is it paying off?
For this assignment, we looked at our Etsy shop, blog, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Ugh, that was a mouthful! We decided not to include Tumblr or LinkedIn, or you know Ello (ugh! Ello!).
It was helpful to sit down and look at all of our data all at once. Some of the information we gleaned was surprising (both good and bad) and some of it was more or less what we'd expected to see. It's no surprise that anything baby related was an instant winner on any social media platform. On the other hand, we never knew just how much blog traffic comes from Facebook.
The information from today's task is already proving useful in a more practical sense as well. Since we're currently in the process of evaluating our line of paper goods, we're weaving in the analytics to help us decide what to keep, what to change and what to discontinue.
With this exercise, we realized just how much we tend to focus on the shorter term in regards to our analytics and don't look at the bigger picture quite as much. When you widen your scope, it changes your perspective quite drastically. It's so easy to live and die by the daily or weekly numbers, but it's only when you look at the broader picture that you realize things are not as bad as they seem.
Today: What does your marketing plan look like? If you haven’t looked at it in a while, now is the time. Make sure that it reflects the changes in your mission statement and business plan as well as what you’ve learned from your analytics. If you don’t have a marketing plan yet, now is the time to come up with one!
Yesterday: Take a look at your analytics. Where is your traffic coming from? What are your most popular posts, items or pages. Why is that? What are your least popular posts, items or pages. Why is that? Where are you putting your energy and is it paying off?
For this assignment, we looked at our Etsy shop, blog, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Ugh, that was a mouthful! We decided not to include Tumblr or LinkedIn, or you know Ello (ugh! Ello!).
It was helpful to sit down and look at all of our data all at once. Some of the information we gleaned was surprising (both good and bad) and some of it was more or less what we'd expected to see. It's no surprise that anything baby related was an instant winner on any social media platform. On the other hand, we never knew just how much blog traffic comes from Facebook.
The information from today's task is already proving useful in a more practical sense as well. Since we're currently in the process of evaluating our line of paper goods, we're weaving in the analytics to help us decide what to keep, what to change and what to discontinue.
With this exercise, we realized just how much we tend to focus on the shorter term in regards to our analytics and don't look at the bigger picture quite as much. When you widen your scope, it changes your perspective quite drastically. It's so easy to live and die by the daily or weekly numbers, but it's only when you look at the broader picture that you realize things are not as bad as they seem.
Today: What does your marketing plan look like? If you haven’t looked at it in a while, now is the time. Make sure that it reflects the changes in your mission statement and business plan as well as what you’ve learned from your analytics. If you don’t have a marketing plan yet, now is the time to come up with one!
October 29, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 28
Yesterday: What tools does your business need to grow? What would make your life and your business easier (other than winning the lottery!)? Make a list of 3 moderately priced purchases for your business that you can make over the next year. Then create a financial plan that will allow you to acquire them. Be realistic!
Sitting down to discuss yesterday's assignment, we realized how far we've come over the past 27 days. As we work through the different steps of this project, it's becoming easier to identify the areas that need work. One of our goals for this cleanse is to learn to work smarter rather than harder and this is the lens through which we viewed this task.
As our business has grown over the past three years, shipping has become a bigger and bigger aspect of our business lives. We ship everything, online orders, wholesale orders, custom print jobs, Kickstarter rewards, samples... And one of the stupidest things we do right now is print all of our shipping labels on our office printer. So the first order of business really needs to be a real shipping label printer (and our inkjet printer sighs with relief!).
It was relatively easy to come up with three tools that would allow our business to grow and/or make our life and business easier. The second step is always slightly more complicated. As Robin mentioned in passing when we sat down to work on this step, "it's always easy to come up with new ways to spend money on the business!" This is definitely true! After some careful planning, we're pretty confident that we'll be able to make our three purchases within the next twelve months.
Today: Take a look at your analytics. Where is your traffic coming from? What are your most popular posts, items or pages. Why is that? What are your least popular posts, items or pages. Why is that? Where are you putting your energy and is it paying off?
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| L-R: Lundeen's in Culver City, a wholesale order heading out to Lundeen's |
As our business has grown over the past three years, shipping has become a bigger and bigger aspect of our business lives. We ship everything, online orders, wholesale orders, custom print jobs, Kickstarter rewards, samples... And one of the stupidest things we do right now is print all of our shipping labels on our office printer. So the first order of business really needs to be a real shipping label printer (and our inkjet printer sighs with relief!).
It was relatively easy to come up with three tools that would allow our business to grow and/or make our life and business easier. The second step is always slightly more complicated. As Robin mentioned in passing when we sat down to work on this step, "it's always easy to come up with new ways to spend money on the business!" This is definitely true! After some careful planning, we're pretty confident that we'll be able to make our three purchases within the next twelve months.
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| A trip to the post office! |
October 28, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 27
Yesterday: Think about your branding. Does it still fit your company and it’s newly polished mission statement? Does it reflect your refreshed business plan? If it does, then think about 3 ways to strengthen your message. If it doesn’t, think about 3 ways to bring everything in line.
For the purposes of this exercise, we've defined branding as the entirety of the Ink+Smog Editions experience. As we've made our way through this 30 day small business cleanse, we've worked on many aspects of our brand's overall identity. Still, there are a few items that need to be brought into line.
The three areas that we feel need the most attention at the moment are our collateral, our website and our signage. Believe it or not, we are only just coming to the end of our old offset business cards. We need to sit down and design our own letterpress business cards, it is long overdue. Second, as we've discussed in earlier assignments, it is high time that we get our own website up and running. We also need to go through and update all of our Etsy listing images. And third, our show signage could use some work. We update our display every year, and while last year's metallic balloons were a crazy hit, we haven't really found anything that works quite as well this year.
We have integrated each of these three tasks into the scheduled workflow for the next few months that we created on day 23 of this project. We're hoping that by creating a deadline, we'll have the impetus to move forward on these projects that have been on the back burner for too long.
Today: What tools does your business need to grow? What would make your life and your business easier (other than winning the lottery!)? Make a list of 3 moderately priced purchases for your business that you can make over the next year. Then create a financial plan that will allow you to acquire them. Be realistic!
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| L-R: old blog layout, new blog layout. |
Branding for Ink+Smog Editions is something that we've always approached as a work in progress. As our business grows and changes, we think it's important to have our branding grow and change along with it.
For the purposes of this exercise, we've defined branding as the entirety of the Ink+Smog Editions experience. As we've made our way through this 30 day small business cleanse, we've worked on many aspects of our brand's overall identity. Still, there are a few items that need to be brought into line.
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| Our table display at the Unique LA 2014 summer market. |
We have integrated each of these three tasks into the scheduled workflow for the next few months that we created on day 23 of this project. We're hoping that by creating a deadline, we'll have the impetus to move forward on these projects that have been on the back burner for too long.
October 27, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 26
Yesterday: Buy yourself some flowers today, or reward yourself with an inexpensive treat. You’ve earned it, you’re nearly there!
Yesterday was delightful! We started the day off going to The Mama Circle's Mama Mornings meet-up at Individual Medley in Atwater Village. It was both our first mama meet-up and our first time at Individual Medley. What a lovely organization and a great way to meet other mamas. It was so kind of Individual Medley to host us for the morning, their shop is full of so many beautiful things! The babe had a great time hanging out, she'd never seen so many babies before!
From there, we took care of some business and dropped off a new order of Greetings from Atwater Village cards to our retailer Treehaus across the street. Their new space is beautiful! So light and airy and full of so many great pieces!
Our 30 day small business cleanse reward was lunch at Proof on Glendale. It was delicious! We haven't spent too much time in Atwater Village. We had such a great time today, we can't wait to go back!
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| L-R: Lunch at Proof, Rosemary and the babe, delicious! |
From there, we took care of some business and dropped off a new order of Greetings from Atwater Village cards to our retailer Treehaus across the street. Their new space is beautiful! So light and airy and full of so many great pieces!
Our 30 day small business cleanse reward was lunch at Proof on Glendale. It was delicious! We haven't spent too much time in Atwater Village. We had such a great time today, we can't wait to go back!
Today: Think about your branding. Does it still fit your company and it’s newly polished mission statement? Does it reflect your refreshed business plan? If it does, then think about 3 ways to strengthen your message. If it doesn’t, think about 3 ways to bring everything in line.
October 26, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 25
Yesterday: Look at your space, do you have boxes that have never been unpacked? A stack of papers you never have time to deal with? Create a window in your day today, put on some music, turn your phone off and tackle those tasks without interruption. Try to get as much done in that window of time. If you can’t finish it in the time you set aside, do the same every day until you’re done.
We would really like to say that we buckled down, turned on the music, turned off our phones and took care of business yesterday, completing our task. We'd love to say that, but we can't. Instead, we had earlier print jobs to finish up, reprints to take care of, a custom project to research and a whole lot of running around to do. By the end of the day, it felt like two days packed into one!
But, we're going to take our own advice, and try to set some time aside today to work on yesterday's task later this week. We'd love to work on it today but we have a whole other day of crazy errands, meetings and projects that need to be taken care of before the week starts in earnest.
However, we really need to make time for this project in particular. When we moved into our current studio space, we were exhausted. We moved in the middle of December, in the middle of holiday orders and holiday craft shows. We were both still working full time at day jobs and we did our best to move as much as possible on weekends and in the evening. It was a complete nightmare move. Two years later, we're still recovering. And, we still have boxes here and there, lurking in the corners that have yet to be unpacked and dealt with. Now that we're preparing to move again, we need to make it a priority not to move with these boxes still packed.
Today: Buy yourself some flowers today, or reward yourself with an inexpensive treat. You’ve earned it, you’re nearly there!
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| Robin printing on Sunday. |
But, we're going to take our own advice, and try to set some time aside today to work on yesterday's task later this week. We'd love to work on it today but we have a whole other day of crazy errands, meetings and projects that need to be taken care of before the week starts in earnest.
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| Proofing yesterday's prints while we eat breakfast in the studio this morning. |
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| Scenes from a traumatic move, December 2013. |
October 25, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 24
Yesterday: Develop a calendar system that you will actually use. Try to map out your workflow for the next week to see if it’s going to work for you. Work on it until it does!
When we first started Ink+Smog Editions, Robin was working full time and Rosemary was between freelance contracts. Our product line was rather limited and it was pretty easy to stay on top of things. As we began to pick up steam and Rosemary started a new part time contract, we knew that we needed to come up with a few ways keep everything on track.
One of our solutions was to come up with a monthly workflow sheet. Towards the end of the month, we would sit down and think about the things that we wanted to work on during the next month. What were our goals, how were we going to organize our time, what did we want to blog about... Nothing was set in stone, it was just a way of organizing our thoughts and priorities for the coming month.
We stopped using our workflow system somewhere along the way, probably right around the time we moved to our studio space downtown. Some of the early difficulties we had with the space (unreliable electricity and internet, the struggles of being the second tennant in a new construction that was still under construction!) interrupted some of our good work habits.
Yesterday, we sat down and revisited our old workflow sheet and updated it for November. We've made a few adjustments, adding set printing days for one, removing more elaborate social media goals now that we're more established for another.
We'll see how well this plays out over the next month. Our workflow sheet combined with our giant wall calendar from Paper Source and our daily notebook should be a pretty good overall calendar system. We'll be working out the kinks for the next few weeks, wish us luck!
Today: Look at your space, do you have boxes that have never been unpacked? A stack of papers you never have time to deal with? Create a window in your day today, put on some music, turn your phone off and tackle those tasks without interruption. Try to get as much done in that window of time. If you can’t finish it in the time you set aside, do the same every day until you’re done.
When we first started Ink+Smog Editions, Robin was working full time and Rosemary was between freelance contracts. Our product line was rather limited and it was pretty easy to stay on top of things. As we began to pick up steam and Rosemary started a new part time contract, we knew that we needed to come up with a few ways keep everything on track.
One of our solutions was to come up with a monthly workflow sheet. Towards the end of the month, we would sit down and think about the things that we wanted to work on during the next month. What were our goals, how were we going to organize our time, what did we want to blog about... Nothing was set in stone, it was just a way of organizing our thoughts and priorities for the coming month.
We stopped using our workflow system somewhere along the way, probably right around the time we moved to our studio space downtown. Some of the early difficulties we had with the space (unreliable electricity and internet, the struggles of being the second tennant in a new construction that was still under construction!) interrupted some of our good work habits.
Yesterday, we sat down and revisited our old workflow sheet and updated it for November. We've made a few adjustments, adding set printing days for one, removing more elaborate social media goals now that we're more established for another.
We'll see how well this plays out over the next month. Our workflow sheet combined with our giant wall calendar from Paper Source and our daily notebook should be a pretty good overall calendar system. We'll be working out the kinks for the next few weeks, wish us luck!
Today: Look at your space, do you have boxes that have never been unpacked? A stack of papers you never have time to deal with? Create a window in your day today, put on some music, turn your phone off and tackle those tasks without interruption. Try to get as much done in that window of time. If you can’t finish it in the time you set aside, do the same every day until you’re done.
October 24, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 23
Yesterday: Create a customized checklist of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly tasks for your business.
There's nothing quite like making a list of all the things that you do on a daily basis to make your head spin! Yesterday's exercise definitely brought home that we need to be working smarter not harder.
Especially lately, it always feels like we're rushing to do things. That we're constantly printing or packaging or shipping. Somewhere along the way, our carefully crafted work schedule gave way to a little bit of chaos. A good deal of this can be attributed to the arrival of the wee babe, it's hard to print during nap time. But some of it started during the pregnancy when everything revolved around energy levels and nausea.
Sitting down yesterday and making the initial list and then organizing it into daily, weekly, quarterly and yearly tasks was very helpful. It's very calming to feel like everything is finding it's place. We're going to test out our checklist over the next few weeks to see if we've covered all our bases and to see how it actually works with our lives. A plan is great, but it isn't worth much if it isn't something you can actually stick to.
Today: Develop a calendar system that you will actually use. Try to map out your workflow for the next week to see if it’s going to work for you. Work on it until it does!
There's nothing quite like making a list of all the things that you do on a daily basis to make your head spin! Yesterday's exercise definitely brought home that we need to be working smarter not harder.
Especially lately, it always feels like we're rushing to do things. That we're constantly printing or packaging or shipping. Somewhere along the way, our carefully crafted work schedule gave way to a little bit of chaos. A good deal of this can be attributed to the arrival of the wee babe, it's hard to print during nap time. But some of it started during the pregnancy when everything revolved around energy levels and nausea.
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| A little of what's on the press this weekend, hurry up and get your postcards before they're gone. We won't be carrying them for much longer! |
Sitting down yesterday and making the initial list and then organizing it into daily, weekly, quarterly and yearly tasks was very helpful. It's very calming to feel like everything is finding it's place. We're going to test out our checklist over the next few weeks to see if we've covered all our bases and to see how it actually works with our lives. A plan is great, but it isn't worth much if it isn't something you can actually stick to.
Today: Develop a calendar system that you will actually use. Try to map out your workflow for the next week to see if it’s going to work for you. Work on it until it does!
October 23, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 22
Yesterday: Review your business plan. Does it need some polishing? I bet it does! If you don’t have a business plan, now is the time to write one down!
This was a hard one. Not only because it's a big project to undertake, but because it's been a very long very draining week.
Over the years, we've had various business plans for Ink+Smog Editions. As our vision of the company has grown and changed, we've updated our plan to include our new directions and ideas. After three years, we decided it was time to start over and create a new business plan for this new chapter of our business. We've followed different models over the years, but we decided to give this one a try this time. It's one of the links we've been pinning on our Professional Practices board on Pinterest lately. We didn't follow it exactly, but customized it to fit our business and our objectives.
In the interest of full disclosure, we did not fully complete the task today. We got the broad strokes filled in but still need some time to finesse the finer points. This is not the sort of project that you complete in one day. Or even really in one week. It takes a lot of thoughtful conversation and careful consideration. It's a process and not one that should be rushed. We're still ironing out some of the details about our dream client, our promotional strategies and our continuing education, but we're pretty happy with our brand summary and our operations.
We're going to keep working on our new business plan over the next few weeks, we're hoping to have it fully fleshed out by the end of this 30 day project. It is so incredibly helpful to set deadlines for your goals, especially on days when all you want to do at the end of the day is crash out on the couch after putting the baby down to sleep!
Today: Create a customized checklist of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly tasks for your business.
This was a hard one. Not only because it's a big project to undertake, but because it's been a very long very draining week.
Over the years, we've had various business plans for Ink+Smog Editions. As our vision of the company has grown and changed, we've updated our plan to include our new directions and ideas. After three years, we decided it was time to start over and create a new business plan for this new chapter of our business. We've followed different models over the years, but we decided to give this one a try this time. It's one of the links we've been pinning on our Professional Practices board on Pinterest lately. We didn't follow it exactly, but customized it to fit our business and our objectives.
In the interest of full disclosure, we did not fully complete the task today. We got the broad strokes filled in but still need some time to finesse the finer points. This is not the sort of project that you complete in one day. Or even really in one week. It takes a lot of thoughtful conversation and careful consideration. It's a process and not one that should be rushed. We're still ironing out some of the details about our dream client, our promotional strategies and our continuing education, but we're pretty happy with our brand summary and our operations.
We're going to keep working on our new business plan over the next few weeks, we're hoping to have it fully fleshed out by the end of this 30 day project. It is so incredibly helpful to set deadlines for your goals, especially on days when all you want to do at the end of the day is crash out on the couch after putting the baby down to sleep!
Today: Create a customized checklist of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly tasks for your business.
October 22, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 21
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| A snapshot of a corner of the studio this morning. |
For this assignment, we tried to keep the scope narrow. It's so easy to come up with a gargantuan list of goals that exist somewhere in the future. But, since we're trying to keep this project firmly rooted in the possible rather than the fantastical, we thought it best to start small.
Over the course of the day, we came up with a list of goals that we would like to accomplish by this time next year. We started off by each thinking independently about what we would like our goals to be and then we started discussing our ideas together. As our discussions progressed, it became clear that we had five objectives that we could agree should be our priority for the coming year.
Our next task was to decide on three concrete steps to take for each goal. It was really helpful to break down the exercise into three temporal levels. By creating a plan for the next few days, the next few weeks and the next few months we were able to each take on specific responsibilities as well as make a more detailed plan for overseeing the project over the next year. We both feel very confident that we will at least make great progress in these areas over the next year if not reach our goals entirely.
Today: Review your business plan. Does it need some polishing? I bet it does! If you don’t have a business plan, now is the time to write one down!
October 21, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 20
Yesterday: Donate or recycle any old tools, supplies, technology, phones, materials, furniture etc. that you no longer use.
On a regular basis, we find that we have tools, or materials or technology that we no longer use and do not plan on using hanging around in the studio. We like to donate these items to a local charity like Goodwill or the Council for Jewish Women Thrift Shops.
It's really helpful to go through your work space periodically and not just clean things up but clean things out. We all end up holding onto things that we don't need. This exercise finally gave us permission to get rid of an electric pencil sharpener that hasn't worked in months. We've tried fixing it, we've tried banging it, we've tried cursing at it (amazingly that last one, didn't do a thing!) but nothing worked. We also donated a few items from our studio kitchen and bathroom as well as some supplies that we no longer used.
It feels really good to clean house every once in a while. We don't always make the time to work on these smaller tasks. But when we do, it can make a world of difference.
Today: Make a list of the business goals you would like to accomplish by this time next year. For each goal, list 3 concrete steps you can take. One in the next few days, one in the next few weeks and one in the next few months.
On a regular basis, we find that we have tools, or materials or technology that we no longer use and do not plan on using hanging around in the studio. We like to donate these items to a local charity like Goodwill or the Council for Jewish Women Thrift Shops.
It's really helpful to go through your work space periodically and not just clean things up but clean things out. We all end up holding onto things that we don't need. This exercise finally gave us permission to get rid of an electric pencil sharpener that hasn't worked in months. We've tried fixing it, we've tried banging it, we've tried cursing at it (amazingly that last one, didn't do a thing!) but nothing worked. We also donated a few items from our studio kitchen and bathroom as well as some supplies that we no longer used.
It feels really good to clean house every once in a while. We don't always make the time to work on these smaller tasks. But when we do, it can make a world of difference.
Today: Make a list of the business goals you would like to accomplish by this time next year. For each goal, list 3 concrete steps you can take. One in the next few days, one in the next few weeks and one in the next few months.
October 20, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 19
Yesterday: Think about the businesses that you admire, that are similar to yours. Carefully choose one or two whose trajectory you would like to emulate. Spend some time looking at how they handle their business. What are their marketing strategies? How do they use social media? What steps can you take to get yourself to where they are?
When we first started Ink+Smog Editions, we were very confident in our process and in our means of production, but we were uncertain about the business side of our business. We had very little experience setting up an online store, managing business accounts on social media or dealing with wholesale customers. One of the ways that we dealt with our knowledge gap was to look at what other businesses were doing and how they were doing it. We reached out to the small business owners we knew and asked them questions, we looked at how other people had set up their Etsy shops and we spent hours exploring Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Some of the examples we followed were in our field but many weren't. It was so helpful to see the ups and downs that other people had gone through in order to figure things out for our business.
Whenever we've mentored other small business owners, we often suggest that they start off by doing the same thing. Look around, see what other people are doing and learn from how they've set their businesses up. How do they handle the things that you are having issues with. How have they gone from startups to whatever stage they've currently reached. How can you learn from what they do well and what they don't.
Three years in, we still do this. Whenever we go to do something we've never done before, we look at who else is doing the same thing and how they handle it. We then try to incorporate some of those elements into our process. We try some of the tricks that they've mastered and see how they fit with our company. We're still inspired by some of the companies that we chose as role models early on. We've also added companies along the way. It's been helpful to find new inspiration at every twist and turn.
Today: Donate or recycle any old tools, supplies, technology, phones, materials, furniture etc. that you no longer use.
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| Pages from Rosemary's notebook from the very early days of Ink+Smog Editions. |
Whenever we've mentored other small business owners, we often suggest that they start off by doing the same thing. Look around, see what other people are doing and learn from how they've set their businesses up. How do they handle the things that you are having issues with. How have they gone from startups to whatever stage they've currently reached. How can you learn from what they do well and what they don't.
Three years in, we still do this. Whenever we go to do something we've never done before, we look at who else is doing the same thing and how they handle it. We then try to incorporate some of those elements into our process. We try some of the tricks that they've mastered and see how they fit with our company. We're still inspired by some of the companies that we chose as role models early on. We've also added companies along the way. It's been helpful to find new inspiration at every twist and turn.
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| Some of our role models. L-R: Iron Curtain Press, Anemone Letterpress and Dot&Lil. |
October 19, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Days 17+18
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| L-R: Robin printing postcards, the lovely sky at the end of the day outside the studio, the babe watching Robin work. |
Well it would have been nice to spend the day doing nothing but relaxing and enjoying cute little baby cuddles (omg, they're totally the cutest!) but there was printing to be done this weekend, and orders to be caught up on and a few loads of laundry as well. We enjoyed our day off tremendously, especially since the weather has been cooling off a little here lately (it'll be back to hell-adjacent by Wednesday though!), we hope you enjoyed your day off too!
Sunday: Know your numbers! Figure out the cost of doing business. What are your fixed costs, your variable costs and your bottom line?
One of the reasons why so many small businesses fail is poor management. New business owners often lack relevant business and management expertise in finance, purchasing, selling, large scale production and the management of employees. In order to run your business efficiently, you need to work on the business side of your business just as much if not more than you work on the production side of your business. If you don't know your numbers, you'll find yourself sinking fast.
We didn't always know our business inside out. As we mentioned the other day, we started our business in a very roundabout kind of way. We knew we wanted to work on something together, and then it turned out to be this. We had some experience going in, but there was still a rather big learning curve.
There are two types of costs incurred by a small business. You have fixed costs, these costs stay the same month to month and sometimes year to year. A good example would be the rent for your studio space, utilities, hosting fees, payroll, memberships to professional organizations etc. Then you have variable costs. These costs vary from month to month or year to year. These can include trade or craft show fees, advertising, short-term help, special purchases among other things.
In order to make your business profitable, you must first determine your bottom line. This is done by adding your fixed costs and your variable costs. A good way to do this, is to look at last year's numbers. If this is your first year, then combine your year to date with your projections for the rest of the year. This bottom line number tells you how much of your product you need to sell or how many clients you need to maintain in order to turn a profit.
It's important as you run your business to keep up to date on your numbers. Check in every once in a while to make sure that you're still on target. Set goals, create action plans, keep pushing yourself to be better at what you do. And know your numbers, know them backwards and forwards. If you don't know where you are financially, then who does?
We've just started working with a new online accounting program called Wave. It's similar to Freshbooks but free. We've got high hopes that it will work well for us until we're ready to make the jump to Quickbooks.
Today: Think about the businesses that you admire, that are similar to yours. Carefully choose one or two whose trajectory you would like to emulate. Spend some time looking at how they handle their business. What are their marketing strategies? How do they use social media? What steps can you take to get yourself to where they are?
October 17, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 16
Yesterday: Sit down and read over your mission statement. Does it still accurately reflect your business and it’s aspirations? Polish it until it does. If you don’t have a mission statement, now is the time to write one!
Before we started working on this step of the 30 day small business cleanse, we really didn't think that we had an official mission statement. Like a lot of small businesses, we started off with an idea about what we wanted to do and we just started doing it. In fact, I'm not even sure that we really knew that we were starting a business when we started our business. A friend of ours was organizing a pop-up shop and asked us if we wanted to participate. At the time, we'd just started working on some linoleum blocks using photographs that Rosemary had taken of neon signs. So we thought, well why don't we just turn them into cards rather than prints and sell those. We printed them by hand (literally with our hands!) and that was the beginning of Ink+Smog Editions.
Fast forward three years and here we are, still working with urban imagery, still crushing on neon signs, still interested in the city that surrounds us. As we've grown and changed, we've developed what we like to call our elevator speech. Our thirty second spiel about who we are and what we do. But we'd never really thought about it as a mission statement. But it is. In a nutshell it explains who the company is and what we're interested in. We probably couldn't have come up with a better mission statement if we'd sat down and tried to come up one.
One of the really interesting parts of this 30 day project, is that it is giving us the opportunity to connect with our company. We're sitting down to do work only to realize that we'd been slowly working on or thinking about a lot of these things over the years and in many cases, we've already down at least the foot work if not the actual work of the assignment. This project is bolstering our confidence in part because we're realizing that even though we've never sat down and worked on some of these points in as concrete a way as we felt we needed to, we'd often done the work more organically along the way.
Today: Catch up and relax! Take some time today to tie up the loose ends from any of your earlier projects. All done? Then relax!
Oh we are so looking forward to this! Baby cuddles here we come!
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| Ink+Smog Editions in the beginning. |
One of the really interesting parts of this 30 day project, is that it is giving us the opportunity to connect with our company. We're sitting down to do work only to realize that we'd been slowly working on or thinking about a lot of these things over the years and in many cases, we've already down at least the foot work if not the actual work of the assignment. This project is bolstering our confidence in part because we're realizing that even though we've never sat down and worked on some of these points in as concrete a way as we felt we needed to, we'd often done the work more organically along the way.
Today: Catch up and relax! Take some time today to tie up the loose ends from any of your earlier projects. All done? Then relax!
Oh we are so looking forward to this! Baby cuddles here we come!
October 16, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 15
Yesterday: Review your client/project process. What works, what doesn’t? What are your road blocks. Brainstorm 3 ways to simplify your workflow and then create an action plan for implementing them.
Huzzah! This was just the impetus we needed to figure out some of the issues with our custom project work flow. Up until now, we have only ever done a few select custom jobs here and there. But, one of the benefits of purchasing the Heidelberg Windmill press a few years ago, was that we would be able to take on more custom jobs. Here is one of the roadblocks we tackled as part of this assignment, the outcome of which we're hoping will help simplify our workflow.
For the most part, we've figured out the back end paperwork for custom work as we went along. We have all of the components, but we've always had trouble keeping track of the project from start to finish, especially since there are two of us and we're each responsible for different stages. After a fair bit of discussion we decided we needed to create a client work sheet. A printed sheet that would follow each stage of a custom job from start to finish. We were inspired by similar sheets created by Zie Campbell a graphic designer, illustrator and blogger. She constructed several layouts to help her keep track of her different freelance projects (her sheets are available as a download here for purchase). We're hoping that these work sheets will function as a roadmap of sorts for our custom work from now on.
Today: Sit down and read over your mission statement. Does it still accurately reflect your business and it’s aspirations? Polish it until it does. If you don’t have a mission statement, now is the time to write one!
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| Discussing yesterday's tasks over a late but very civilized breakfast. |
For the most part, we've figured out the back end paperwork for custom work as we went along. We have all of the components, but we've always had trouble keeping track of the project from start to finish, especially since there are two of us and we're each responsible for different stages. After a fair bit of discussion we decided we needed to create a client work sheet. A printed sheet that would follow each stage of a custom job from start to finish. We were inspired by similar sheets created by Zie Campbell a graphic designer, illustrator and blogger. She constructed several layouts to help her keep track of her different freelance projects (her sheets are available as a download here for purchase). We're hoping that these work sheets will function as a roadmap of sorts for our custom work from now on.
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| Some custom client work. L-R: Enclosure note cards for Love&Arrow, wedding invitation for Sharon+Jared, note cards for Véhicule Press and Love&Arrow, stationery for Outfit Home. |
October 15, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 14
Yesterday: Evaluate your current accounting system. What is working? What isn’t? What would make things easier?
Finding an accounting system that works for us has been one of our biggest frustrations over the past few years. For a while, we were using an online system called Outright that worked pretty well. It automatically kept track of every purchase and all we had to do was go through periodically to make sure that everything was properly classified. The system wasn't perfect but we were able to print out reports that helped us file our taxes and it was really easy to keep track of everything. It was very low maintenance and it was free to use. However, it was eventually purchased by Go Daddy and everything changed. Updates made it clunkier and it became more complicated for us to use, so we decided against making the jump when Go Daddy decided to make it a paid program.
We're currently stuck deciding between Quickbooks and Freshbooks. It would be far easier with our current banking setup to go with Quickbooks but it's a steeper learning curve and more of a financial investment. We can't currently choose Freshbooks because our bank isn't supported. From everything we've heard, Freshbooks is amazing for businesses like ours.
What it comes down to really though, is sorting out our banking situation before we move on to choosing a new accounting system. We love our credit union, but it's so incredibly limited in what they are able to offer. We so badly wanted our foray into cooperative banking to be a success but we've been miserable almost since we joined. We just can't put it off any longer, we need to sort things out so that we can move on and simplify our lives and our business.
Today: Review your client/project process. What works, what doesn’t? What are your road blocks. Brainstorm 3 ways to simplify your workflow and then create an action plan for implementing them.
Finding an accounting system that works for us has been one of our biggest frustrations over the past few years. For a while, we were using an online system called Outright that worked pretty well. It automatically kept track of every purchase and all we had to do was go through periodically to make sure that everything was properly classified. The system wasn't perfect but we were able to print out reports that helped us file our taxes and it was really easy to keep track of everything. It was very low maintenance and it was free to use. However, it was eventually purchased by Go Daddy and everything changed. Updates made it clunkier and it became more complicated for us to use, so we decided against making the jump when Go Daddy decided to make it a paid program.
We're currently stuck deciding between Quickbooks and Freshbooks. It would be far easier with our current banking setup to go with Quickbooks but it's a steeper learning curve and more of a financial investment. We can't currently choose Freshbooks because our bank isn't supported. From everything we've heard, Freshbooks is amazing for businesses like ours.
What it comes down to really though, is sorting out our banking situation before we move on to choosing a new accounting system. We love our credit union, but it's so incredibly limited in what they are able to offer. We so badly wanted our foray into cooperative banking to be a success but we've been miserable almost since we joined. We just can't put it off any longer, we need to sort things out so that we can move on and simplify our lives and our business.
Today: Review your client/project process. What works, what doesn’t? What are your road blocks. Brainstorm 3 ways to simplify your workflow and then create an action plan for implementing them.
October 14, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 13
Yesterday: Assess your product line. Lay out one of each of your items in such a way that you can see exactly what you’re producing. Does everything work well together? What is missing? Where do you go from here?
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| Our product line laid out on the wall in the studio. |
It was really helpful to lay everything out together. We're always working on pieces here and there that it's really easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Having the physical item in front of you is really very different than looking at your items listed in your online shop or when working on layouts for your look book or catalog.
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| Some of our cards and prints pinned to our studio wall. |
Overall this was a really fun exercise! Seeing our whole line laid out in front of us was really interesting and really gratifying. It's really easy to forget all of the effort and hard work that has gone into each and every design. We get so caught up with prints, reprints, packaging and shipping that we rarely look at the individual pieces anymore. Even when going through and spot checking or doing quality control, we hardly look at the piece itself. This was a nice reminder of where we came from and will definitely help us get to where we want to go. So much so, that we're planning on leaving everything up, at least for the time being.
Today: Evaluate your current accounting system. What is working? What isn’t? What would make things easier?
October 13, 2015
30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 12
Yesterday: Review your wholesale process. Come up with 3 ideas to streamline your process and begin implementing them.
Over the past two years, we've been slowly building up our wholesale presence. You can see some of our retailers here. One of our objectives is to turn more towards the wholesale end of our business. This was the main impetus for upgrading to a Heidelberg Windmill press a few years ago. In order to do this, we have spent a lot of time recently reviewing our wholesale materials and trying to rethink our wholesale process.
We've spent a great deal of time discussing where we want our wholesale business to be, but have only just begun working on how to make the process simpler and faster. Yesterday's exercise was really great, it forced us to think about all the different ideas and obstacles we've been talking about but then we had to boil everything down to three ideas.
One thing that keeps coming up time and again in this project, is that it is more than time for us to build our own website. It would be particularly helpful in this regard since it would allow us to create a wholesale portal that would simplify the process both for us as well as for our wholesale buyers.
The second idea we discussed involves our invoicing process. At the moment, our invoicing is cumbersome and a little complicated. We need to do some research into a new method for creating as well as keeping track of invoices.
And third, we would really like to move to Freshbooks. This is very much tied to our second solution. In order to do this, we need to change banks since ours is not currently supported by Freshbooks.
These three ideas are really just a beginning, an entry point into a much more complicated discussion. We will start with these three and see where we go from there.
Today: Assess your product line. Lay out one of each of your items in such a way that you can see exactly what you’re producing. Does everything work well together? What is missing? Where do you go from here?
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| L-R: packaged wholesale order ready to ship, Wholesale street in DTLA near the studio and a display of Ink+Smog Editions cards at Urban Radish in the Arts District in DTLA. |
We've spent a great deal of time discussing where we want our wholesale business to be, but have only just begun working on how to make the process simpler and faster. Yesterday's exercise was really great, it forced us to think about all the different ideas and obstacles we've been talking about but then we had to boil everything down to three ideas.
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| Working on the wholesale exercise yesterday with coffee. |
The second idea we discussed involves our invoicing process. At the moment, our invoicing is cumbersome and a little complicated. We need to do some research into a new method for creating as well as keeping track of invoices.
And third, we would really like to move to Freshbooks. This is very much tied to our second solution. In order to do this, we need to change banks since ours is not currently supported by Freshbooks.
These three ideas are really just a beginning, an entry point into a much more complicated discussion. We will start with these three and see where we go from there.
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| L-R: A display of our cards at Los Angeles County Store in Silverlake (photo courtesy of their Instagram), the cover of our 2015 Look Book, some of our cards on the Beautiful Things LA bus (photo courtesy of their Instagram) |
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