The Happy Envelope designs and produces wedding invitations, birth announcements, holiday cards and other custom printing products. The company recently opened an office at 525 Union Avenue in downtown Knoxville.
VCRs brought the cineplex into the living room, and Blockbuster Video made a fortune by allowing people to rent a flick for a few of bucks. Cost prevented ordinary consumers from owning vast libraries of the newest releases, so Blockbuster solved the problem by sharing the titles with its members. Now the Internet is delivering “videos” faster, more conveniently, and more efficiently then even driving up to the closest video store. Despite adding more features to its stores, Blockbuster is solving fewer and fewer people’s problems.
The Internet has disrupted other information delivery “solutions” providers like newspapers, music stores, and bookstores. The “problem” that consumers need access to information has not changed. It is just that the Internet solves that problem more efficiently.
Whether your business involves information delivery or widget manufacturing, customer’s problems are always changing, and solutions to their problems are always improving. While it’s tempting to sometimes try to make obsolete delivery methods more “featured” or widgets more efficient, sometimes you have to go to the heart of the matter and ask, “what problem does my business solve today?”
Bluegill has been busy lately with the creation of the redesigned site for The Happy Envelope, a Knoxville-based, custom designed invitation and paper goods company. Working with owners Sarah and Ty Pattison has been invigorating for the team of Robby, Caryn and myself. They typify the very clients that we want to help—small business owners that are using the Internet to make their business possible.
The Happy Envelope’s main challenge was building a site that would allow customer’s to customize their cards on the site. The customization allows customers to enter their text using Sarah’s originally designed colors and fonts, upload (and size to fit) pictures. Robby built a custom solution that allowed for a premium customer experience. All of the products can easily be managed through the Bluegill’s proprietary Content Management System, Oatmeal.
In addition, The Happy Envelope is able to manage every stage of the order process from within Oatmeal.
As always, our amazing Bluegill team drew together and helped to finish details to launch the site in the final days. Check it out and let us know what you think, and pick up a few Christmas cards while you’re at it…
Let’s play a game. Name as many “water” figures of speech as you can think of in 10 seconds. On your mark! Get set! Go!
A fish out of water
In deep water
It doesn’t hold water
It is like drinking a glass of water
To throw water on fire
You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink
Since the days of Poseidon, water has been a big deal. Whether discussing everyday life or business, we find ourselves making water analogies several times a week. Funny how well these expressions sometimes fit, but the real thing to remember is that with gentle perseverance a babbling brook can carve out the Grand Canyon.
Marketing isn’t always flash bang, but with consistent and gentle perseverance in marketing and public relations, your company can be a work of wonder. Even when it sometimes feels like you are frantically paddling upstream, remember that the cool and steady waters of the Colorado carved through limestone and sandstone – no explosions, just perseverance.
Can’t help but love these social media ads and their throwback to a vintage print style.
Designed by a Sao Paulo ad agency, Moma, I love the way these ads are treated. They fully embrace the concept of old ads, not just a style. I frequently admire the simplicity of old ads with their strong illustrations, minimal yet clever text in beautiful typography and well planned color schemes. The artistic approach of vintage ads serves up large portions of inspiration for any project.
