movin' on up!

All of us here at Simple are very, very excited to let you all know we have become officially more official and now have a little space in NYC that we are using for meetings and tradeshows (instead of lugging around heavy and overstuffed sample bags and sitting under fluorescent lights at trade shows).

 We basically went into an old building, took over a tiny corner with lots and lots of windows, took out all the old and nasty stuff... and used what was in the space to reshape it into a place we would want to make our workbase when any of us Simple folk are in the city.

We did what we could to build this space out as sustainably as possible... polished concrete floors, low VOC paints, tables made from compressed paperboard and reclaimed wood, all energy star appliances, and a HEALTHY dose of reclaimed wood frames and stretched organic cotton canvas. 

If you look closely you can check out the new shoes we're doing for Fall 2009... coming soon to a store near you!

hugs,
cielo

Enter an entry to win a book.

Do you remember what you thought about yesterday?

How about last week, last month, or last year?

Perhaps it wasn’t anything earth-shattering, but who knows, someday it may be neat to look back upon yesteryear’s half-baked ideas and read something you thought was worth writing down.

Dan Price, our resident journalist, wrote (handwritten, not typed) a book to inspire others to start journaling. It’s appropriately titled How to Make a Journal of Your Life . 

Comment on this post with a entry you'd write in your journal and you’ll be entered into a drawing to win one of ten copies of Dan “Hobo” Price’s How to Make a Journal of Your Life.

So go ahead and express yourself, it might be fun!

is caulk the answer?

 

If you've got a problem with slippery slippers (ie if you aren't wearing a pair of our cozy wool babies), we've come across the perfect solution: caulk.

This wonderful blog has step by step instructions on how to make wool slippers un-slippery (but I figure you could do this with a pair of socks if you are a. resourceful, b. crafty, c. cheap, OR d. happen to be caulking something and can't stand any to go to waste).

While I definitely like the slithery see-through worm look before she smooths out the caulk, it might be worth doing some doodles of, say, a kitten in a basket, or what you think the internet looks like.

hugs,
cielo

Show me your booth!

Nizzle, Wiz and crice escaped headquarters for a trip to

San Diego

last week. The purpose for the absence was to give our retailers a preview of the Fall 09 line-up at the Action Sports Retailer show.

 

Most companies bring three things to ASR; people, product and a booth where the people show the product.

 

After the product and the people who show the product, the booth is probably the most important part of the tradeshow.

 

Booths are as unique as the people and products that occupy them. Some booths have models, professional athletes, artists or musicians and some have a single hand-written sign.

 

Because nobody asked me for booth input, Simple didn’t have organ music nor did they buy me any temporary friends. We did have a big-time musician in our booth, for a moment, but he purposely didn’t bring his guitar and, presumably, received no compensation for his appearance.   

 

At Simple we do things a little differently. We use interesting and responsible ways to attract attention and make money, but we do love loud noises and eye candy as much as the next footwear company. We sell shoes based on values rather than vice.

 

To accomplish this, we rounded up some unloved, unnecessary and unused phonebooks to help beautify our booth and simultaneously make us beautiful people at the same time.

 

A lot was accomplished on the trip. Not only did we save a lot of phone books from the trash and flaunt our Fall ’09 line-up, we also unveiled our new creative. It’s called less>more and it’s a fresh way to describe what’s been happening at Simple for a while.

 

If you’re not familiar with what we do at Simple, a great example is giving phonebooks a second chance. If people deserve a second chance, why don’t previously living trees. I don’t believe a phonebook was intended to go directly into the garbage because I’ve never seen the phonebook delivery guy delivering a phonebook into a garbage can.

 

Here’s the fruit of our toils. We didn’t build the booth ourselves, Shane, Paul and a couple of other guys did. Nikki took the photos and Chris sold the shoes.