Free Designs... If You're Lucky

Have you ever heard the expression "Too much of a good thing?" Well we've got too much of several good things, and they're taking over our production space! We've got extra designs and we just don't have the heart to toss them out. Good designs. Popular designs. Designs that were cut in the wrong size, cut in the wrong color, or just cut when they weren't really needed. We've decided to give them to good homes. From now through Christmas, one free popular design will be happily gifted to a customer that orders that day. They are our gift to our fantastic customers, and we don't care one bit about re-gifting these little babies. To see what's being given away today, or to see which lucky customer won a prior design, visit our promotion page. For more gift ideas and inspiration, stay around and browse the site. Our designs are growing by the day!

What We're Thankful For

Our employees—Chris, Nick, Cody, Austin, Zach, Christine, Taylor, Katie, Samantha—we couldn’t do it without you! Our fantastic USPS carriers—you guys rock! iPhones—we couldn’t survive without the daily battle over the production room playlist Recycling centers that help us keep our carbon footprint more like a kitten heel than an Ugg boot Social networks—and my love/hate relationship with Twitter and Facebook Inspiration for our ‘coming soon’ line of new nursery designs—congrats Sami and Zak! The fall colors that were stunning but brief Mead, mulled wine, and egg nog—yum! The recent food and wine festival at Disney World—my feet are still sore! Hot bubble baths and soaking my troubles away after a long day The economy finally showing signs of life The growing Trading Phrases business that continues to keep us busy each and every day Our family, friends, and our fantastic customers—Thank you!

everyone!

That's Fontastic!

A funny thing happens to people who start working for Trading Phrases. People start recognizing fonts, or at least start noticing if something would be easy to work with or would be (now how do they put that… oh yes, now I remember) pure swoopy font hell.

Those pretty scrolly, scripty fonts that I love working with make our production crew whisper mutinous oaths. Plain text (boring in my opinion) fonts make them practically giddy. And the cutting machines also have their own ‘issues’. Just try to cut Passions Conflict font without the machine skip a letter or two out of spite. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

I’m working on a compromise font for a lot of my designs lately. Poetica is a fairly plain font, with Roman alternative capitals that add a bit of flair. I still haven’t given up the swoopy scripts entirely; I’m just trying to mix things up. However, if you start seeing nothing but plain text designs in the coming months please send help—the crew will have probably will have me locked in the storeroom far from my precious scripty fonts!

New Holiday Designs for 2009

Yes, I know, Thanksgiving is not here yet. I couldn't help myself. This year is going to be different. This year I'll shop early and avoid the last-minute crowds. This year I'll get those cards out early. This year I'll bake cookies and take them to the neighbors. This year I'll... Nevermind, I know myself too well, and I won't be doing any of that. I will, however, put up a bunch of fun designs for our holiday collection to add some instant cheer.

I love vinyl decals for holiday and seasonal decorating. They are beautiful, look like a hand painted stencil, and are easily removable when the season is over. If you want to reuse the decals from year to year, then apply them to a plaque, to a large tile, or even to a mirror or a piece of plexiglass that can be stored and used again. If you're got a personal message that you would love to create for your space, then contact us and we'll get that personal masterpiece started for you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go take down a few Halloween decorations...

Swooshes, Scrolls, and Swoops—whatever you call them, they’re here!

I’m excited about our latest scroll designs. I love a fun, unexpected graphic impact on my walls. These scrolls are a nice change from the lettering designs that are so prevalent in our designs. These are great accents for over a door, accenting a window, a topper for a collage of frames, or just about anywhere. I’m planning on adding a few above the cabinets in my kitchen, and am going to dress up an old boring a cabinet with a few well placed scrolls. Now, what colors to choose?...

Halloween's a Coming

I love fall, the leaves are festive, the air reminds me of a summer day at the beach (that's the beach on the Oregon north coast, where 80 degrees is a heat wave), and the kids are back in school. We're busy churning out new designs, both custom ones and others that go well with the Simply Words category. We've also got a new Boo! promotion that is sure to add a little fun and whimsy tucked in with each order (now until Oct 25th).

Our designs have been spotted on a new site, where site users can create a mashup of several images and create their own digital expressions. Check out one of the family designs and then give it a go. It's a quick and fun way to start designing at http://www.polyvore.com/.

Rethinking Our Website

Where there’s a website, there’s a way to improve it. We’ve been thinking about our website a lot lately, and we’re slowly realizing that we need some significant overhaul. The designs are difficult to find, the shopping cart options aren’t standardized, and shipping options and discounts are cumbersome. On the other hand, it has a great look and feel to the design that really resonates with our customers.

We’re looking at updating the the custom quote options, which will let customers really get a chance to play with their design, font choices, and colors up front. We want that to be a seamless transition to either purchase directly without intervention. We also want to keep the ability to transfer the work in progress to the next step where one of our designers can make it truly special with a mix of fonts, colors, embellishments, layout options, and everything else they do to make the custom quotes a work of art.

Here’s hoping this redesign is a positive experience. Generally when you get creative types and technology types together they can’t seem to communicate. You end up with visually stimulating designs that don’t have the features or functionality that is actually something someone can use. Maybe that business degree in computer information systems will come in handy–not that I’m ever planning on admitting that it was worth it to suffer through statistics!