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April's
Articles for Giftware News:
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What
if?
May 14, 2007
What if there was no
top of the market?
What if we only designed for the middle?
And when the middle was too small we only designed for the mass?
What if we only designed what sold well last season?
What if the Big Boxes set the trends?
What if everything had to fit on a shelf of a certain dimension
and be boxed in a box of just the "right size"?
What if barcodes and packaging and pallets and deliveries were
more important than what was inside?
What if we limited our color palettes and cut fringe colors?
Because the codes were too long and the matching too tricky?
Goodbye sharp lime and old rose and magenta and crimson.
What if there was only vanilla and chocolate and never raspberry?
Goodbye Ben and Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs and Cold Stone Ice-cream?
What if designers all worked efficiently from computers at home?
Goodbye story boards and cuttings and first samples and pencil
sketches, water colors and antiques, goodbye collaboration and
team work and synergy of efforts.
What if traveling became cost prohibitive and we never had to
visit other places?
Goodbye London, Paris, Marrakech and Santa Fe.
Goodbye influences from far away.
What if we eliminated tamaracks and gingkos and azaleas and had
only pines and maples and petunias?
Goodbye bio diversity, goodbye silhouettes, good bye change.
What if we stretched out all of the degrees of temperature and
divided them by 365 days and had the same temperature every day?
And we found just the right crop to grow in that temperature and
we ate it every day.
And we ate it in the way that kept the best and cost the least?
What if crows were the last bird standing and they had no others
to caw to?
What if fragile scarlet tanagers and indigo buntings and Connecticut
warblers just didn't count?
What if quirky sheep decorations from Cody and Foster were never
fostered?
What if nobody stretched for the top—but everybody rested
in the middle—because that's where the money and the security
live.
What if everything was a formula and there were no pinches of
ginger, and snips of thyme and lashes of cream?
What if we just stopped trying—because the 'market' is not
there.
What if we stopped imagining?
What if we stopped dreaming?
What if we stopped thinking?
Do you really think the middle would still be there?
Do you really think a crow, a pine tree, a basket of petunias
and a scented candle can make it all alone?
America stands for diversity and nurtures niches, let's keep nurturing,
looking, seeking, trying, and challenging our talents and expectations
in the gift industry too.
Let us be the imaginers and the imagination.
Let us be the change of seasons and the variety of life.
Let us not be the lowest common denominator.
Let us be the elusive primes.
Let us be the quest.
En route to Delhi,
Via New York and London –
Just imagine!
April |
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