We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Richele Silva. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Richele below.

Hi Richele, thanks for joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

In general the greeting card designers tend to be young women. Being a woman of “a certain age” my perspective sways older, as do my sentiments. It’s taken me a while to sort out my voice in the copywriting but having an older view has helped set me apart from other independent card designers.

Richele, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a greeting card designer and printer. Since college, greeting design has been a life long dream. It was one of those industries that I knew nothing about or anyone who actually did it. I worked in design and advertising at the time and I slowly did homework about the industry [walked trade shows talked to store owners] and then began taking some art classes in letterpress printing. I was asked to do a friend’s wedding invitation while learning to print and I realized this may be the perfect combination of art and craft together. I purchased a vintage press and hauled it to my garage and I’ve been printing ever since.

The mainstay of my company is selling wholesale greeting cards to boutiques and stores across the country. I’ve also sold at national chains such as: Urban Outfitters, Macy’s and Paper Source. In addition to my wholesale work, I do work on speciality projects such as wedding invitations and sometimes poets or writers will have me print broadside [poster type ephemera] for personal projects.

With my card line www.richiedesigns.com I think the thing that sets me apart is having an older point of view, bold type and graphics along with really gorgeous paper. I use 100% cotton paper for the most lux writing experience. With invitation work and other ephemera, I believe my years managing high-end clients helps me to talk to and ask the questions to get to the look and feel that they want. It’s a skill to be able to ask the right questions and also listen to what the clients say.

I’m really proud of the fact that I’m still here! It’s been a rough road for sure with Covid and the ups and downs of the economy. I’ve been doing this full time for 14 years now and am still growing my brand. These days the cost of goods is rough and also we’re still having issues with paper availability so a good deal of my time is chasing down raw materials in addition to producing the goods.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

With my wholesale business, I’ve partnered with an industry disruptor Faire.com. They act like an online showroom for thousands of products. Showrooms are expensive to have your goods in and Faire has made it easy to reach new clients through their site. I would say it’s the thing that saved my business during Covid and beyond.

I do sell direct to consumer through Etsy. I’ve been on that platform for many years and stay because it’s easy and their diverse clients often lead folks to my store that may never have heard of my company before. I probably should have my own store on the .com but managing three platforms as a business owner and only one employee is difficult. You have to learn to pick your battles and that’s one I’ve let go.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I had to unlearn is that bigger isn’t always better. On occasion I’ve looked to colleagues that have grown exponentially and had pangs of jealously. A couple of years ago I had a hard conversation with myself if I would really want that experience ie: renting a bigger space, hiring more staff, scaling larger and when I looked at what that would entail, I decided specifically to stay small. I have managed staff before and it takes a lot of energy and HR hours to do that well. If I went that direction I would have less creative time and more people time and I decided I didn’t want to do that. Be careful of what you wish for!

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.richiedesigns.com
• Instagram: @richiedesigns
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/richiedesign

Image Credits
@hameisterphoto / Eric Hameister and Richele Silva