THE GOOD. It's finally Halloween! Well, we sort of cheated and have been unabashedly gobbling a stash of our favorite candy for a couple weeks now. But what we’re truly excited about beats any amount of Kit Kats and Butterfingers: we welcomed George to the team! He is our new pressman, and the only way to describe him is magical. From the first day he and his trusty toolbox arrived, he’s mesmerized us with his printing, ink mixing, and press whispering. AND he brings in donuts (of the fresh from Union Square variety). Magical, right?
Speaking of amazing feats, Clayton ran the Chicago Marathon this month. Or more like he sprinted the marathon to the tune of 02:46:41!! You guys, that placed him 260th out of tens of thousands of runners! But if you ask him how it went he’ll just say he felt good and was excited to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. That’s great and all, but I think a little Rocky theme song is appropriate here.
In other good things, we officially introduced April May for Smudge Ink! This line of map cards and prints all grew from my love of Boston and its neighborhoods. I’ve included many other cities and state since my first map drawing six years ago, and now all Smudge Ink customers can shop the collection.
THE BAD. Like all months, not everything went according to plan. Our “September” release was a full month late. Changes to schedules and staffing, coupled with an already demanding print lineup for the holidays, added up in bottlenecks and delays. It was a good lesson on how to tackle issues and make necessary adjustments sooner rather than later. We also made sure to communicate everything to our sales reps, being quick to answer all of their questions and providing them with easy access to our catalogs to show to stores in the meantime. We're really happy to see Valentines orders already starting to come in!
THE NOT-SO-UGLY. Crusoe kills it with this costume.