Photo courtesy of Sarah Kocher
I walked into Engage Paperie to the sound of Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” playing softly in the background. As is fitting for a custom stationery store, the air smells of fresh paper, which is probably because it’s everywhere: lined up in rows on shelves, stacked neatly on display tables, falling artfully out of mailboxes, and folded into origami stuck to the walls. It is an organized communicator’s heaven.
Engage will celebrate two years of papering the town on December 1. According to Diedre Johnson, who co-owns the store with her sister Valerie Carlson, the business started out of Valerie’s garage when she and her husband bought a letterpress and taught themselves to use it. Eventually, the business grew enough that Valerie brought Diedre in as a partner.
“We needed someplace that was kind of pretty and that people could come to see what we do,” Diedre said.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Kocher
This desire for customer interaction fueled the name, too.
“The biggest thing about having Engage and actually one of the reasons that Valerie and I wanted to do this [is] we were primarily selling our stationery through other stores like Engage and we were never meeting our clients,” Diedre said. “You’re creating this beautiful piece for them and then you never get to know what they think.”
Now, Diedre enjoys designing and tailoring the pieces in-house and getting to see the clients happy with the product at the end. Customers who ask Engage to design their wedding, baby, holiday and birthday cards come in for a consultation with the in-house graphic designer. A timeline is established, designs are approved and proofread, and the invitations are printed.
“It’s a really fun and simple process,” Diedre said.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Kocher
Having a store location also helps Engage stay on trend. After all, Engage’s well-mannered customers need their stationery game to be on point. Like everything else, custom stationery has its “ins”: watercolor, rose-gold foils and bold colors are this fall’s it items. And, according to Diedre, none of those are out of reach.
“When you come to Engage Paperie, you can get affordable stationery,” Diedre said. “You shouldn’t feel like you can’t have something pretty for your events.”
This is true for customers with less customization required for their stationery needs. For these people, Engage is like a giant, beautiful filing cabinet: here in one section are the boxed sets, there in another are the individual occasion-related cards, and on that table is a pen that promises to last for seven years.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Kocher
It can be hard to close your eyes and picture so much paper used so creatively, but pulped trees never looked so good.
“It’s just a matter of engaging people in a conversation on paper,” Diedre said. And looking inside Engage, I tend to agree: there’s a lot to talk about. My personal favorites are the apology card with a finger-puppet donkey doodled on the front, a Star Wars themed baby congratulation, and the beautiful wood typeset from when it all began, shelved in thin drawers underneath the Kate Spade collection.
I tend to agree with Stevie Wonder: signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Kocher
