Over the years, I’ve profiled a seemingly endless array of makers who enter the stationery game from other professions. But I’m pretty sure that Dr. Daniel Molina is the first doctor that I know of to enter our domain.
For the past 24 years, Daniel’s “day job” has been that of a Family Medicine physician, caring for the Native American community as a member of the U.S. Public Health Service serving the Indian Health Service. His official title is the Chief of Research and Public Health, Chickasaw Nation Department of Health, and his boss is actually the Surgeon General (!). Thus most of his time as a uniformed medical officer has been spent caring for the rural tribes of Oklahoma, currently the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Caring for others is at the heart of everything Daniel does, including of course Sticks that aah. “I’ve always seen myself as an incredibly empathic person with an ability to connect, and this is what led me into medicine,” Daniel wrote me. “When I stop to reflect, these are the same traits and wiring that steers an individual into greeting cards and paper products.”
So, what’s the story with these stick figures? “Going back to my days as a medical student, I’ve used my doodles to connect with patients, and continue using them to this day,” Daniel explained. “And because my capacity to connect with patients well outperforms my artistic ability, I turned to easily drawn stick figures as my vehicle for empathy.”
Because Daniel is a physician, he is well versed in the clinical benefits of connection that most laymen do not understand: the instant dopamine release, prolongation of serotonin levels, and a decrease in the stress hormone cortisol. All of this can result from giving someone a card with a thoughtful sentiment, he emphasizes.
“I have literally used this as medicine with my patients, and it was they who suggested I share this medicine with the world. I can’t tell you how many times I would say to myself, ‘but they’re only stick figures!'” he wrote me.
Ultimately, the stick figures helped Daniel navigate his own dark time. “The pandemic is what ultimately changed things for me,” he explained. “I was on the front line of this response, actually overseeing much of it. When this is your role, you don’t have much time to process things for yourself. My ‘stickadoodles’ became my therapy, my own personal medicine. At the end of those 16-hour days, I’d just go home and create. I drew for friends, for family, for patients and ultimate for myself. That’s when I truly discovered the powerful simplicity of a stick figure with a healing message, and how sharing that healed me.”
I love how the video below shows him bringing Sticks that ahh to life. The ‘aah’ of course refers to not just the sound we make when we see something interesting — L. Frank Baum described ‘Oz’ similarly — but also when we’re on the business end of a tongue depressor!
Daniel told me his work tends to be a big hit with kids, especially when they find its hidden secret. “Within each piece of art, I’ve created an augmented reality animation that brings the painting to life. I’ve since brought that feature to all my cards, so you can discover an extra hidden gem when the image comes to life with our partner app.”
Last month I got to meet Daniel and see his stick figures for myself at *Noted in San Francisco. I was so happy to learn afterwards that Sticks that aah won a Best of *Noted+Gifted Award, for Most Innovative! “Who would have thought stick figures could be innovative, I mean, besides us?,” he quipped. Dozens and dozens of attendees (these winners were crowd-sourced) clearly disagreed.
At *Noted, Daniel also participated in its award-winning Pitch Program, essentially an opportunity for small brands to ‘pitch’ themselves to key accounts first thing before the market officially opened. The people you see listening Dr. Molina tend to be from bigger stores, so don’t be surprised to see Sticks that aah on a shelf near you soon.
I can’t help but feel that Daniel’s more clinical approach to understanding the power of card-sending is already giving him an edge in the stationery game! To him, it is just another aspect of practicing medicine. Nerds in the wild, shop cards, stickers and art here, and to my friends in the trade wishing to bring this range to their stores, that process starts here.
