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SHOW PONY MAGAZINE
You often express your love for the neighborhood where you live and work. How has being a part of the Venice community enhanced your lives? Our neighborhood rules! The block we’re on, Abbot Kinney Blvd., is this cool little strip tucked away in the back pocket of Venice. Our shop is nestled in amongst amazing art galleries, boutiques, cafes, and restaurants. We’re inspired everyday by the diverse architecture, variety of people, and the constant flow of creative energy that surrounds us. Our lives are particularly enhanced by the people we’ve come to know from being in business these last 6 years. There’s a sense of community here in Venice that is rare in most parts of Los Angeles. We have many regular customers and since we’re in the business of sentiments, we get to engage with them on all the good stuff like weddings, babies, birthdays, and holidays. Someone came in last week to get a “sorry” card for shrinking her roommate’s sweater so we even get some of the “bad stuff” as well. This personal connection with our community is really rewarding and probably the most meaningful part of the business. We’ve met some of our best friends through having the shop here.
In an age of texting and tweeting, do you feel that taking the time to hand write a card or letter is a way for us to re-connect with one another? Yes, yes and more yes! We don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy finding a hand-written envelope in the midst of a pile of junk mail and bills. Opening up a personal letter can give an unexpected boost to your day. It’s the little things in life like this that have become a rare treat in this digital age.
Why do you feel it is important to you to carry products designed and manufactured in the United States?
In what ways does Urbanic support and contribute to the creative community that you are a part of?
We think it’s completely important to support the domestic designers in the U.S because it helps keep good independent design and production alive! Even a small company like ours can make a difference in helping improve the economy.
We host events and workshops throughout the year that bring people together. At Urbanic, we’re surrounded by so many different types of creative people in the community that we’ve made it our personal project to bring these like-minded folks together to meet, mingle and hang out. It’s so awesome to see connections made! We produce each one of our events with a team of other talents. This brings our parties to another level making them more dimensional. The events also create an opportunity to feature the work of planners, stylists, florists, foodies, photographers, and bloggers. We also incorporate a d.i.y feature into all of our parties that we’ve termed “project socials.” This gives people the opportunity to get to know each other while being creative.
Can you share some of the locally made product lines that you carry? Some of the lines we carry that are local to the Los Angeles area are Fugu Fugu Press, Dear Hancock, Sugar Paper, Pei Design, Dee and Lala, Ghost Academy, and Maginating. We especially love these folks because if we get in a jam and need more cards they will sometimes personally deliver them to us!