The Stationers Guild

It’s interesting to follow changes in consumer behavior when subjected to different stimuli.    While participation at the National Stationery Show shrinks and social media “communication” grows, there is a tendency to throw in the towel and wonder if the exchange of paper correspondence has been swept aside by Tweets signifying nothing.  I have very good news:   Beauty, personal touch and product integrity will prevail!

I am heartened by companies like Elum and Dauphine Press – to name but a few – for raising the bar and actually connecting with the consumer in their own medium.  How refreshing it is to see companies share products of great beauty in a very captivating and exciting manner.  More to the point – they encourage their brick and mortar dealers to make use of this great imagery to drive people to their stores.  If you haven’t already done so, sign up for their Blogs and receive great product imagery that you can use in your own promotions.  They will appreciate it and so will your clients.

There is much going on in cyberspace and much of it can easily be used to your advantage if you make a small effort.   As Alice in Wonderland once asked:  ”Where to begin?”  (I’m not sure she actually said that).   While recovering from the silly behavior of some vendors, I have spent a bit of time in convalescence surveying the social arena in cyberspace.  I have focused mainly on weddings and wedding invitations, in particular.  There is a lot of cool and exciting stuff going on!

Take for instance, this delightful website/blog called Alice in Wedding Land.   The Brits gave us the Beatles and now they are breaking tradition by having us look at weddings through the looking glass of Alice.  This may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is refreshing to see such creativity brought to light by those who prefer to act outside the Walmart Box.  My personal favorite is the Winter Wedding Spectacular.  Thank you Alice for sharing these inspired designs and gorgeous images.  This inspired invitation is from Die Exklusiven Einaldungskarten – Sonja Bührke and I have asked her permission to use this in this Blog Post.

This is just one example of the great beauty that lies waiting to be discovered by those who want to take off their blinders. There is nothing worse than seeing talented artists in the stationery industry designing corporate logos and Walmart coffee mugs when they can be creating great works of art for their clients.

For those that are interested, I will be happy to send you a list of some 60 or so of my favorite wedding Blogs so that you too can stay in touch with wedding and fashion trends. I suggest you get the news delivered to an email reader like Feedly.com which appears to be the RSS Reader of choice now that Google Reader will suspend service on July 1.