My winter market travel days tend to be filled with rogue snowstorms and general chaos, while in summer I always seem to miss some big family event by attending one. Thus I truly, genuinely adore that the prime time for stationery shopping has traditionally been spring. There’s no better time to shop calendars and dated product for next year, and to peruse winter holiday merchandise — which is difficult at best to consider in January. Plus everything (and everyone) just looks fresh in the clear light of the season, and anyone who knows me knows that spring is my favorite time of year to inaugurate a fabulous new frock.
I already shared a few highlights from the most recent *Noted:+Gifted, held last month in San Francisco, over at Stationery Trends. Please check it out if you haven’t. Meanwhile, today I have a real treat — a guest post from none other than Emily McDowell!
Following her Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis at age 24, Emily found that many people she considered close completely disappeared from her life. Those experiences led her to singlehandedly invent The Empathy Card category roughly a decade back, and frankly, the card industry is still responding. Every time you see a sobriety, divorce or infertility card, it sprung from Emily’s path.
With that said, obviously Emily has an astute eye we are fortunate to briefly look through. And she is clearly all-round amazing company, part of the reason why I’ve had her on The Paper Fold not just once but twice. So rather than pontificate further, I’ll let Emily take it away!
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Hi everyone, Emily McDowell here, sharing my thoughts on *Noted/Gifted 2024! I’m the founder of the brand Em & Friends (originally Emily McDowell Studio), and I parted ways with the company after its acquisition in 2022. So first of all, I was able to walk the show without worrying about what was happening in my booth, which in itself still feels like a remarkable experience.
I was also at last year’s *Noted/Gifted, and this year, the first thing I noticed was that the room seemed much more lively; it had that palpable “show vibe” you always want to feel when you walk in. Last year, the show was divided into sections, with stationery on one side and gift on the other, and I think the decision to mix it all together in 2024 was smart. This layout helps buyers discover new brands more easily and organically, as long as the adjacent companies feel somewhat related, which they did here. (Unlike the year Em & Friends exhibited on the pier at NYNOW between a lawn ornament company and an air freshener brand … this degree of “mix it up” was not helpful.)
I love SF and I lived there for five years, but it’s hard to get to and very expensive, so although the *Noted/Gifted venue [The Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture] is literally the most gorgeous space you could ever hold a trade show in — like, I would personally get married there and I can NOT say the same thing about the Javits — I’d love to see the Greeting Card Association move it to a more centrally located, less pricey city.
A few trends that stood out to me:
A lot more stationery companies seem to be delving into gift manufacturing, and there was some really beautiful work on display. Many things have gotten more difficult for product businesses in the last five-six years, but manufacturing is one area where the opposite is true. Good overseas manufacturing partners are much more accessible these days, and it’s cool to see the results of this translating into product innovation. (This also supports show management’s decision to stop separating the “stationery” and “gift” areas; many brands offer both.)
There were more cards in Spanish than I’ve ever seen at a show, which I loved to see! In my experience, in order for retailers to take a risk on a type of product that’s new to them, it sometimes requires them to see multiple vendors saying, “Look, we swear this is a thing customers want.” Now that this is happening, I’m hoping more and more retailers will pick up Spanish-language cards.
“Number” birthday cards also showed up around the show, which feels like a new trend for smaller stationery brands. How many of us got Hallmark cards from our grandparents numbered for each birthday (with a $10 check inside)? I’ve also seen smaller UK brands doing this type of card on my visits to Top Drawer and UK stationery shops, but this show was the first time I’ve seen multiple US brands offering them.
There appears to be a movement away from puns on cards, and I realize this is going to be an extremely controversial stance, but my opinion is FINALLY! Don’t get me wrong, I think cute pun cards will always sell, but for the last several years, puns have heavily dominated many retailers’ card walls, and it’s resulted in a lot of work across different brands looking and sounding very similar.
Some personal faves from the show floor:
Humor and gorgeous letterpress from Pier Six Press
Beautiful & unique cards from Homework Letterpress Studio
Cool graphic tea towels from K&S Design Co.
Lemon, orange, and berry glassware from Paper Farm Press
Everything East End Press is doing
Good Juju Ink’s freaking amazing jigsaw puzzles and stationery sets, which I stupidly forgot to take photos of because I was too busy talking to them?
Fugu Fugu Press, always bringing it (again, forgot to take photos for the same reason!)
I don’t miss building booths (no one is shocked), but I’ve definitely missed the camaraderie of shows; it was so fun to see so many old friends and meet new ones last month.
Wtf are you up to now, Emily?
A lot of people have asked me if I plan to start another brand, and never say never, but also no. These days, I’m a lot more interested in using my experience to help other folks, by being the kind of advisor I needed 10 years ago, but couldn’t find. I’m working 1:1 with a small handful of established brands on the full spectrum of challenges and opportunities that come with having a larger business, and Lisa Congdon and I are co-leading a group mentoring cohort doing the same, called The Greater Goods Alliance. I’m also finishing up coach training with Martha Beck, and most of the work I do is sort of coach-sulting; this means I can help you source great manufacturers, and I can also help you feel less like you’re going to die every time you delegate something.
I’m also working outside the world of stationery, writing my Substack newsletter, Subject to Change, on things like creative burnout, quitting stuff, perimenopause, mental and physical health, entrepreneurship, and the great adventure of midlife. The best way to keep up with me is to subscribe; it’s free to read, and I’m mostly off social media these days. I’m also developing offerings with Holly Whitaker on navigating the liminal space of big life transitions; if this speaks to you, we have a workshop coming up in June; sign up for my newsletter to get notified when registration opens. You can reach me, in general, at emilyonlife.com.
Big thanks to Sarah for the opportunity to guest post this week!
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Thank you SO MUCH Emily for sharing your insights. I love sharing fresh perspectives here, especially when I’m on deadline like I am this week! With that said, if you are interested in sharing their thoughts on *Noted, or any other stationery-related topic, I want to hear from you.* Drop me a line at sarah@thepapernerd.com to get started.
*as long as you have plenty of pictures for your post!
