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The 2013 National Stationery Show proved to be quite an experience for us this year. After many months of planning (i.e. stressing) we completed our debut show with no major hiccups. After meeting quite a few amazing people and making some awesome new paper friends, we even managed to trick some people into letting us put our cards in their stores. 

Here's a couple shots of us setting up our booth. It's actually quite incredible how fast things come together. You look down the aisles and it's just madness everywhere, and then all of a sudden you look up and all the trash is gone and the carpet is down and it's just a sea of amazing mini 10x10 stores. The below images are of us putting down the foam tiles and painting the walls. Then, with the help of our trusty laser level, we threw up the shelves one at a time. By "we" I mean I put my friends to work, took some pictures and went to the bar. 

Here is a panorama or our booth after setup and the digital render. Pretty damn close! We ditched the carpet and the plants and I accidentally made 7 instead of 8 shelves, but as in all trade/craft shows, just deal with it and move on. Nobody knows it's wrong except you. Although now, you all know, so perhaps that isn't always true. That saying should read "Nobody knows it's wrong except you unless you write a blog post about it afterwards." 

You would think, standing in the same booth from 9-6 for 3 straight days, I would have taken some pictures, but you overestimate me. I totally didn't, so I went ahead and stole pictures of my own booth from Nole over at Oh So Beautiful Paper. She has some really tremendous event coverage if you're into that kind of thing and she stopped by at the show and took some great pictures of our booth.

Below are a few new notecard designs for us. The Hello & Hi Bubbles which are now up in the shop. 

We also recently published a nifty little feature to the 55 Hi's website. It is a store locator to find local shops that carry our items! After the show we realized we wanted to be able to point people to the stores who are awesome enough to carry our items so we crafted the 55 Hi's Store Locator. It is a constantly growing Google-Maps-style store key that lets you know which stores are carrying our goods if you need a last minute card from us. 

One week until The National Stationery show and it's all finally coming together after months of planning. We contacted our friends over at Tinkering Monkey to help us out with some signage for our booth and they came through big time. We're going to be holding it down in booth #1868.

Since all of our prints are moving towards a strictly limited edition nature, we will only be bringing the coasters and cards to this event in hopes that we can bring some of our goods to stores near you this year. The site will soon have a section listing stores that carry our products in an effort to build a little community up in here. It's always better with friends and if you happen to have a store that you think might be a good fit for us, please let us know and we'll badger them constantly until they are forced to carry our stuff and we will tell them it's all your fault.

Want a sneak peak of the booth? We have a 10x10 inline booth this year and being obsessive compulsive like I am, I did a digital mockup and some real size measuring in illustrator so setup goes a little faster. Here's what we're aiming for. The mockup is a little deceiving though cause the walls are ten feet tall. 

Amongst all this madness, we also just released an Anchorman inspired greeting card and a new print from guest designer Luke Ritchie. 

We've been hard at work these past few months getting ready for a whole bunch of seasonal holidays and exciting events coming up! The biggest event, The National Stationery Show on May 19-22 will be 55 Hi's first trade show, and also the first big push into making it a full-time operation. It is quite an investment but no-risk, no-reward, right?

I have been visiting the Stationery Show the past few years green with envy over the amazing products and design that are showcased there every year. The picture to the left is one of my favorite booth designs from last year by OneCanoeTwo. We will be holding it down at a 6x10 corner booth, #1262.

55 Hi's started in 2010 as a simple creative outlet for me. I would make prints and cards at night after my job that I thought were funny in the hopes that other people would think so too. Almost three years later, things have taken on a life of their own and the idea of this becoming a full time commitment for me suddenly doesn't seem like such a pipe dream.

I think many people assume 55 Hi's is an established business with employees and a warehouse of inventory. It's not. It's just me, Ross. I work out of a one bedroom apartment in Harlem & I still have a day job. I hand-pack and process every order at night and I'm thankful for every single one. If you have ordered something or supported 55 Hi's, or even just read this blog post and thought good thoughts, thank you. Every bit helps and I am so thankful. 

I use the term "We" when referencing 55 Hi's because since starting it I have had the opportunity to work with an amazing roster of talented people. Just in the coming weeks we're going to have cards and designs coming from Joel Felix, Brad Woodard, and Riley Cran. If you haven't heard of any of these folks do yourself a favor and check em out.

We just finished releasing a few collaborative card efforts including Sexy Dyslexia, hand-lettered by James Edmondson & No Pants Dance which was crafted with awesome by Chris DeLorenzo. They had an amazing reception for Valentine's Day and if you had a good experience giving one, please share over on the Facebook page! The shame with making cards is I can never give them to my girlfriend, she critiqued them already.

This year we are getting prepared for Mother's & Father's Day with a few new card/print designs to be released next month. We're gonna pair one of the card designs with a limited edition print so if your mom needs a new decoration for the homestead, we got you covered. Here's a sneak peek, which is basically just the design and not a sneak peek at all.

One of the most exciting new avenues for 55 Hi's is that this year we will be branching into a few new paper products and not just cards/prints. Coasters, notepads, & possibly a few others miscellaneous paper creations are headed this way in 2013. The closest item like this to seeing the store is a new set of 6 coasters called" Pick Your Poison". The concept being that one side of the coaster will be a common drink recipe themed as a "Poison" and then the flip side is the "Antidote" or breakfast recipe that will cure your hangover from drinking too much of that drink. Below is one of the pairs of the set.

I have also been steady at work designing up a whole new set of Birthday Cards. Birthday cards are something I found myself personally needing, so if I needed them and I own a card company, I knew it was an avenue I was lacking. If you follow us on Instagram, you're probably aware of some of the sketches we've been floating into the newsfeed but here's one I'm particularly excited about.

Last but not least, we are changing the print model here at 55 Hi's moving forward. In the past, when it comes to prints and posters, we have released a general mix of limited edition, second edition, color variation limited edition, and open ended print runs in the shop. I believe that this is confusing to everyone and doesn't instill trust or value in the art. Prints are valuable to me because they are limited edition. And when a print says it is limited edition, that means it's the only runs of that print ever in any color combination or size. Therefore, moving forward, any print that 55 Hi's puts out that is limited edition, and they will likely all be limited edition, will be the only color combo and size of that print ever. Once it is gone, no reprint in any variation of any kind will be made again. We are also going to sell our current inventory of un-numbered prints and then they too will be gone forever. So technically they are limited edition now, but just no numbers on them cause I have no idea how many I have made.

To start this new limited edition print model, Live Well was just released into the shop. It is an 18x18, 3-color screenprint in a limited edition run of 300. It has a pretty slick spot varnish on the words dropshadow that catches the light. Check out more pics and closeups here.

As always, if you have a question, or comment, or just wanna shoot the shit and see a picture of my puppy that we just got in December and pooped on my carpet this morning, hit me up on Twitter or Facebook, or Instagram, or Email, or Fax, or Carrier Pigeon.