Paper Salad

Image found at http://redirect.papersalad.co.uk/about.asp

Paper Salad are designers and publishers of contemporary greeting card, gift-wrap and stationery. They recently visited our college to give a lecture about the card/stationery business.

They attended the same college I attend, Stockport, and after graduating started to gradually build up their business together by renting a small studio space where they would sit day after day designing and researching the industry in depth. They didn't really make any money in the first year. It took 2 years to prepare for their first trade fair in New york but only six weeks to design the cards for the show because they say it is everything else that takes up the time! They had to get finance in the form of loans to help them. This first show was very successful . After five years they decided to launch Paper salad because they wanted their designs to stay in their original form without being changed and broken down when sold. They wanted to become a Paper Salad brand. Image found at http://redirect.papersalad.co.uk/news.asp

The following advice and helpful tips were mentioned in the lecture:-

You should work in a studio for professionalism .

Try not to work from home as you cannot get motivated enough.

They like working together as they motivate each other.

Designing takes up 10% of your time - it takes a lot of time to work other things out e.g. paper and card sizes, managing your agents, invoicing, processing orders etc.

Licensing agents take 50%.

Personal strengths and attributes needed are resilliance, determination and be prepared to take risks.

Many people are using digital print.

It is a very competitive business as there are 800 publishers in the UK so you have to get it right!

The UK is leading art and design.

Cards cost 85p - 96p and retail at £1.95 - £2.25.

Paper Salad sell to small independent retailers. They design, exhibit and then retailers come and place orders.

They send their artwork out to be printed

In their opinion it does not matter where your business is based.

You must always look at trends - interiors and fashions

Paper Salad hand draw their designs and do a little bit of digital work which their repro man does for them.

They say you must not worry what other people are doing and must carve your own niche in the market.

You need an agent to license your work - a licensing agent.

It is cheaper to get hand finishing done in China e.g. sequins but you need quantity and you have to pay up front and it takes them 3 months to before you get them back!

You can distribute cards all over the world e.g. New Zealand, Switzerland and Japan.

The Japanese like bright colours.

Two people work well in business, three are a crowd.

You must attend trade fairs.

Make the most of college and learn as much as you can.

Always try to work quicker.

There are two sides to the business - agents sell to publishers and printed cards to small retailers.

It would seem that Paper Salad have been very successful and in five years they aim for a million pound turnover, WOW!