New Year, New Season
Happy New Year! I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday season and if nothing else savored some deep rest. For some folks, it's been a while since you last heard from me so I wanted to write a note to tell you what I've been up to. It's been a wild year (well, maybe more like two), so I thought I'd give you all an update since it's a new year, plus a new season for me. It's a sort of long update I have ahead, so if you'd like the short version here goes: I made my design studio my full-time gig, started leading an amazing organization called the Oakland Indie Alliance during the start of the pandemic, and Viscera products will only be sold through our retail partners moving forward. Part of why I decided to write this letter is that folks who know me under the shop context might not be interested in staying subscribed, to which I say-- fair! I'm not writing about new products, store events, or trends, but I do hope you stay around because the same passion for design, impact-focused business, and our community powers the studio (for example, we have a list of favorite books below, but instead of selling them directly, we're pointing folks to Bookshop, a nonprofit giving Amazon a run for their money and redistributing money to independent bookstores). But if you don't want to stay on the list you can unsubscribe by scrolling down to the bottom of this email-- if you do, I want to say thank you for being a part of this journey and I hope you stay in touch!
In 2021, I made my design studio my full-time gig. I started doing design services for other people in 2017. A lot of other business owners would come into the shop or reach out and ask who did our design/marketing work and the answer would always be "me!" and so I took on projects here and there, but never gave it a lot of attention (why this might be your first time hearing of the studio). Over the years it grew organically, and once the pandemic started, I had a bunch of folks coming to me to help them retool for the new way of doing business. In the last 21 months, we've built a ton of e-commerce websites, created so many graphics, shoot numerous product photos and headshots, launched marketing and social media campaigns, and ultimately helped our small business community. What started as me taking on freelance projects has grown into a studio with a team of 10! While it's been a shift from being in the shop and getting to see people every day, it feels so good to have this extension of the shop still deeply invested in community building, and supporting our local, POC, independent businesses.
Prior to taking the studio on full-time, I stepped into the role of executive director for an amazing organization, the Oakland Indie Alliance. I had been a member of OIA since 2018, joined the board in 2019, and had the wild timing of stepping in the E.D. role on March 1, 2020. Two weeks into being the organization's first executive director I had a global pandemic to contend with and 250+ businesses asking "what now?". Fortunately, OIA is a member lead and run organization, meaning we're a bunch of do-ers, ready to spring into action. We pulled in our communities and immediately launched a Slack channel with information and resources, held member meetings, and created a directory to help our local Oakland community find out how to support our indie businesses. A few short months later protests against police murder and violence were organized in Downtown. Our business owners stood in solidarity with our community and yet bore the brunt of the damage with very little in the way of city resources, so we turned again to our community and raised over $120,000 to start a repair fund. Since, we've launched a COVID recovery fund prioritizing POC businesses, built parklets for small businesses, and so much more. All of this to say, it's an organization I am incredibly proud of and feel so lucky to lead. If you're itching for some of the in-person community building you got from the shop, I encourage you to check out the Oakland Indie Alliance website to see what we're up to and head over to our buy-local campaign, Keep it Oakland to support our indies!
Now to tell you about the shop. Most of you will remember that at the end of 2019, we finished our lease at 1542 Broadway (which as an aside, the space will become Feelmore Social Club and remain independently owned!) and were ready to move into a new location in Spring I put an LOI in for a couple of spaces with our most promising being in Jack London. Ultimately, I lost the space to a startup tech company. At the time I was feeling pretty down-- it was a dream space with exposed wood beams, skylights, a mezzanine, and even a full-grown tree in the space! But in retrospect, it was the luckiest thing to happen to me. If I had signed the lease we would have taken on a bigger space starting March 1, 2020. The day after the lockdown started, my broker called me saying she is so relieved I didn't get the space. And she was right, the universe had some other plans. For a while, I ran the shop online (thank you to everyone who still bought online!) but it just wasn't the same. What I loved about the shop was meeting new people, chatting with my regulars, and geeking out about design and the online shop just didn't have the same charm. So after trying out the e-commerce only route, Viscera products will only be sold through our stockists. Our main-street brick and mortar businesses need us more than ever! I hope you'll continue to buy V by Viscera and our jewelry line through our stockists, they really are a great group of people and you'll still get to enjoy the magic of in-person retail!
If you've made it this far, thank you for sticking around. For the last 2 years, I've stated versions of this letter, uncertain of what to say. But now feels like the right time to say hi! I hope you'll stay in touch and come to some of our events. You'll see below, but we're launching a podcast all about community, design, and small business, we're doing headshot days, and in February will have a booth again at the Black Joy Parade. Thank you for being here, I opened the shop in December of 2014 not knowing what the future would look like and it's been both multitudes more difficult and rewarding than I could have ever imagined. Here's to 7 years of entrepreneurship and let's hope it's the luckiest one yet!