Tobi Wood Designs

tobi wood designs produces hand made notebooks, notecards and magnets. Tobi currently has six collections: bulb, garden, leaf, petal, shape and holiday. Her designs have a modern, clean, fun feel. In an age of email, text messaging, and e-cards, Tobi’s work is the perfect solution for the “tactile” person…CP: To start off, tell us a little about tobi wood designs.
Tobi Wood: i have always made cards for friends and family, and on more than one occasion toyed with the idea of starting my own business. the line i was making previous to this one was way too labor intensive, making it difficult to keep up with orders. people loved them, but kept telling me i really should sell some of my graphic work. i love paper. always have. i am a very tactile person. and i guess with my print design background, the paper thing just came naturally. its what i know. (but i do have to confess, i am a fabric freak as well. i can’t even tell you how many swatches of material i have. one day i would love to be able to explore having my designs made in to linens, pillows etc.) anyway, i had just had a baby (last year) and resigned from my job to be a stay at home mom. i had numerous designs on file, so I brought out my best ones and thought, lets give it a shot and print these. so we did. i taught myself (and am still learning) how to make a web site and went from there. fortunately i come from a family where the creative juices run wild

CP: Did you major in art or graphic design?
TW: i did major in art.

CP: Have you always been creative?
TW: i worked in advertising for 12 years, as a graphic designer and art director. my design style is very simple. i like clean lines and i like color. and then i like a little
funkiness on the side.

CP: Wow, I’m jealous. I couldn’t trace my hand and get five fingers. How do you market your designs?
TW: oh you could, you just have to practice. :) everyone has SOME creativity. you just have to find it. as far as marketing goes, i am trying several things. i just sent out my first press release, word of mouth, advertising within the indie community and then trying to get in some retail stores. i would eventually like to go to the national stationery show in nyc. that’s big time! ;)

CP: When you say, advertising in the indie community, do you mean the Creative Loafing publications and that sort of thing?
TW: i guess i mean more through other indie sites more than anything. i did some advertising with a local company that sends out emails to subscribers in your city to let people know whats going on. and i am on trunkt.com. they have been great for me. now if i can just get on daily candy. :)

CP: What’s been the biggest surprise since starting your business?
TW: whats not a surprise? there have been so many things to learn. i certainly didnt go into this thinking i knew what i was doing, but after a year of doing this, i realize how far i have come and just how much i have learned. and still HAVE to learn.

CP: When you aren’t being a mommy and an artist/entrepreneur, what are your outside interests?
TW: oh i like to do lots of things. but if i am not being a mom, wife and a designer, then i like to be gardening. i love gardening. and cooking.

CP: Finish this sentence, my ideal date night is…
TW: ideal date night. hmm. order thai food and curl up on the couch with my hubby and watch a great movie, and listen to the hum of the sound machine in our daughters room thru the monitor. right now, i just dont need anything that fancy.

CP: That’s great, casual and low-key is a fun date night, I agree. I notice that you don’t like capitalizing words, is it intentional grammatical rebellion, or is the Shift key broken on your PC?
TW: funny! nope, its quicker for me not to. i am a terrible typist and if i tried to capitalize and puncutate correctly all the time, i would be here all day.

CP: given your many other talents tobi, we’ll let it slide….

Purchase stationery, notecards, and magnets at www.tobiwooddesigns.com. Tobi donates 75 cents of every purchase to the international waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia (an extremely rare blood cancer) foundation. For more info, check out their site or look them up in our charities Charity section. www.iwmf.com