Behind the Scenes - How We Make Decisions: Pencil Edition September 22, 2016 05:00

If you purchased a 2016 UPstudio Planner, then you know that we give away a little treat to go with it - a pencil.  Pencils and planners go together like... peas and carrots... Forrest and Jenny... donuts and sprinkles.  Take for example a week in the life of my (Becky's) planner usage:  on Monday I wrote down all of the game times for my husband's volleyball team in my planner - in pen.  On Tuesday, I crossed those out and wrote the revised ones.  On Wednesday, same thing.  NO JOKE.  If I had been using a pencil, no problem, but that pen seriously messed with my perfectionist goals.  *Le sigh*  

The 2016 pencil is black and we decided to use it as a marketing tool as well as a gift, so it reads 'www.upstudionc.com'.  We decided that we needed a little flair for the gift to go with the 2017 Planner.  Spoiler alert: we stuck with pencils, but wanted to add a phrase on there too instead of just straight marketing.  At a meeting between MB and myself, we generated ideas and came up with a list of phrases, narrowing that down to a short list, and choosing from there.  (Keep in mind, this was after a full day of work at our day jobs (remember, we're an architect and engineer, UPstudio is our side hustle), we both have mom brains on fleek, and at least half of us were sleep deprived with a newborn, so things got a little silly.  We're keeping it real in this post.)

These are the ideas that we used as a guide to generate phrases:

  • We love planners.
  • We love lists.
  • We love hard copies.
  • We love mail.
  • (Disclaimer:  We also love trees despite our love of paper products, let's just clarify that right now)

These are the phrases that we considered for the pencils:

  • No need to click save
  • Take note
  • Paper products are my BFF
  • Send real mail
  • No internet required
  • No need for a backup
  • Don't worry about crashing
  • Save As
  • I like the way you work it - no digital (If you're not singing Blackstreet in your head right now, then forget being my friend.  Just kidding.  Kind of.)
  • No charging required
  • Digital schmidgital
  • Digital is for dummies
  • Digital tools are for tools
  • Old school rules
  • Who needs trees, use paper*
  • This only killed one tree*
  • Paper vs Digital
  • Paper for the win
  • I look perfect on your desk
  • I <3 paper

And the winner is...

 

In white!  With gold letters!  Perfection!  What other phrase would you like to see?  Leave a comment below and we'll consider all ideas for 2018 (it's coming faster than you think!)

*We really do love trees