In early December 2019, I saw for the first time my team rise to a collective challenge. Someone I had met at my former employer who owns a photography firm reached out with a challenge. She had for years sent out desk calendars to her clients. Unfortunately, mailing regulations and changes in postage rates had made the endeavor prohibitively expensive. She asked to meet with me to see if there would be a way to do this for 2020.
We met at my
Tri-Cities - Atlanta Airport location shortly after. Bryan, that Center’s Client Services Coordinator and Graphics Designer, joined the conversation. Our Client brought samples of what she had mailed prior years. She had also thought of potential solutions, including a stand for loose calendar pages similar to a bamboo stand she brought. The changes in the USPS meant that we needed to figure out a solution that could be inexpensive to mail by being light and flexible.
Bryan got to work on the research. He figured out that a PVC substrate would be flexible enough to get through the USPS machines, light enough to mail cheaply, and possibly sturdy enough to stand and support the calendar pages. We needed to test that! Meanwhile, Joshua, the Client Services Coordinator at the
Dunwoody - Sandy Springs Center, began working with our mail-services vendor partner to price the project and determine what we needed from our Client to mail the piece.
We clearly had a timeline pressure, as we wanted the calendars mailed before the end of 2019! We worked with the Client to get her files in line in time for the mailing. I took two different weights of cover paper to the Tri-Cities – Atlanta Airport Center, and Bryan created a mock-up piece that the mail services provider tested to ensure it would work. Joshua stayed on top of the Client, ensuring we got the calendar pages we needed. Ella, the Production Coordinator at Dunwoody – Sandy Springs, began to work with Bryan to ensure the calendar pages would be printable.
Finally, the week before Christmas, it all came together. Bryan worked with an independent printer near the Tri-Cities – Atlanta Airport Center to print and cut the calendar bases. I managed to forget them, so he met me halfway between the two Centers so I could get them to the Dunwoody - Sandy Springs location. Ella printed, then cut the calendar pages. She then undertook the arduous process of separating 500 calendars individually, with Joshua helping some. Finally, just a couple of days before Christmas, the Client came in to check on everything and was pleased. Joshua shipped everything to the ,mail service provider, and the team breathed a sigh of relief ahead of the holidays!