Spark Retailer: Pulp & Ink, Chicago

Check out Spark's favorite Chicago retailer...

Tell us about Pulp + Ink.
Pulp & Ink is located in the vibrant area of Chicago called Old Town. For more information about this historic area, visit http://www.oldtownchicago.org.

Colin Falco founded Pulp & Ink, a trendsetting stationery and invitation boutique in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood in the fall of 2001. Prior to opening Pulp & Ink, Falco began his career directly out of college working with small to mid-sized adverting agencies allowing him to quickly learn all aspects of marketing, design and printing.

Continuing this path he began to work for the second largest printing company in the country in the marketing services group. There he was responsible for managing the creative, printing and mailing of millions of direct mail pieces per day for mid-sized and fortune 500 corporations. Wanting to explore an entrepreneurial itch Pulp & Ink was born. His vast knowledge and thirst for design, printing and client service translates perfectly into the success of his business.

Pulp & Ink has been recognized in Crain’s Chicago Business, Chicago Social, CS Brides, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Suntimes, Brides.com, NBC Chicago, Chicago Magazine and Today’s Chicago Magazine to name a few.



What do you like most about working with your clients?
We enjoy working one-on-one with our clients to create unique stationery for their events.

What do you think is the most important piece of stationery that a couple should consider?
Thank you notes are essential. For example, it can often times be more economical to print the thank you notes at the same time as the wedding invitation set. This allows our clients to utilize their thank you notes before and after their wedding.

What do you offer that keeps your clients coming back to you for their stationery needs?
We always offer our clients personal service and strive to exceed their expectations.



Visit Pulp & Ink's website at pulpandink.com
Located at 1344 North Wells Street, Chicago IL 60610
phone (312) 475.1344
email pulpandink@aol.com

A final note from Spark...
Quite simply, Colin at Pulp & Ink is an authority on stationery. He and his staff are adept at helping their clients create unique stationery for any occasion. We encourage you to visit the Old Town area of Chicago and check out Pulp & Ink. You won’t be disappointed!

Oh so navy!

Although we completely tired out Jim with running this job, I think the deep navy we achieved through double-rolling each piece was well worth it. This client came to us through Michael C. Fina's stationery department. She had her heart set on using a Japanese paper backer and utilizing some of the elements from that paper in her design. Although it is hard to see in this photo, the invite has a blind deboss (plus a little help from transparent white ink). All other pieces are one color.

Check out our die lines. And other stuff, too.

This year I put together a holiday handbook for our printing customers, but really it is just a decent resource for what dies we have available, as well as a few words about our paper and finishing options.

http://sparkstationery.com/Spark_HolidaysHandbook.pdf

I have to admit that ever since we did our first die cut, I've been in love with shapes. I'm sure we've added more in the past few months, but this covers some of our most used ones. Contact me if you need assistance or have questions.

Seed paper here, seed paper there, seed paper everywhere!

Well, not anymore. This job went out a few weeks back through one of our trusty retailers, Michael C. Fina in New York. Their corporate client had to have seed paper for their holiday party invitation. We used a lovely seed paper from Porridge Papers and were quite pleased with the results. We printed a quantity of 400 in gold ink, with custom artwork by our designer, Kate. Riley, our employee who we can't give a title as he is responsible for a wide variety of tasks around Spark, took this picture after getting all 400 of them put into their swanky little holiday sleeves before shipping to New York.

Back in the day...

Do you ever run across an old design or something you printed a long time back and it reminds you of where you were at with your business at that point in time?

I was going through some of our older work - before we were knee deep in letterpress - and found this design I had been working on. We used to print on a little Canon digital printer/copier thing. It actually had pretty nice color for what we were doing at the time. This picture is a little weird because the paper is metallic and we're getting some strange glare.

We were still in Minneapolis at this point and our business doing custom work for area couples was thriving. We did this design (and countless others) in preparation for a Twin City Bridal Association wedding fair. I used to love doing their events as I always thought they were so well put together!

Enough with the past. We're working yet another Sunday in the hopes of catching up. Ha!

One of the reasons we work so hard...

I'm at home today due to illness, so I had a minute to check out some photos my husband (and lead press operator at Spark) uploaded to our family Flickr page over the weekend. This one caught my eye. This is our older daughter, Lily, who recently celebrated her third birthday.

We want to create the best future for her and Lucia, and part of doing so is dedicating ourselves to the work we do for our clients. Sometimes it means late nights and weekends to get a job out, and that means asking Lily to "be patient and color just a little bit longer while Daddy cleans the press." I'm sure many of you can relate. It's hard having your own business or a career that demands so much of your time, but hopefully some of our short-term sacrifices will have a long-term payout of some sort. A little time off, a bit more financial security, etc.