Planning a Planner v2019 Part II August 30, 2018 05:00

This is the second and final installment of the Planning a Planner series.  To get caught up on all the changes that have been made to the 2019 UPstudio Weekly Planner and why, check out last week's blog post.   

And now.. the biggest change in UPstudio Planners for 2019... 

We are introducing a new Monthly Planner!  The Monthly Planner is a slightly larger format, approximately 8" x 10", with a flexible black leather cover. The planner is bound with smyth sewn binding, so it lays perfectly flat, and includes full spread month layouts, a look ahead for 2020, followed by 62 pages of grid paper, similar to the Weekly Planner.  Because it does not include weekly spreads, the overall thickness of the planner is much more slim than the Weekly Planner.  The Monthly Planner also includes the same upgraded ribbon as the Weekly Planner, as well as an elastic closure, and pocket in the back.

We are so excited to share this new product with you!

For 2019, the Monthly Planner will only be offered in black leather.  Weekly Planners will still be offered in the same colors as last year - gray and satchel (since satchel was such a hit and we had to re-order last year, we upped our initial order number, so there are plenty to go around!)

Planning a Planner v2019 Part I August 24, 2018 05:00

For the past several years, we've taken our readers on a transparent journey of how and why we've made decisions for updates and changes on products and specifically, the UPstudio Planner.  The first year we created the planner was obviously the most extensive amount of work we've done and information we've compiled.  You can read more about the entire process starting here, but in the meantime here's the cliffnotes version: we came up with ideas, put together a sample, solicited a focus group to use the sample, compiled feedback, made changes, and produced the *original* UPstudio planner.

  (here she is!)

Fast forward to the next year where we outlined our process in the Planning a Planner v2017 series.  The biggest change for the 2017 Planner was the binding type and cover.  2016 had a spiral binding type and a chipboard cover, but after using the planner for a year, we felt (and heard from you guys) that changing the binding to something less obtrusive and upgrading the cover to something more durable was critical.

  (lemme lemme upgrade!)

For the 2018 Planner, we revealed in the blog series a few upgrades, a big change in Monday starts to the weeks for the month layouts, and the most exciting change: a second cover color option.  

 (sisters!)

The UPstudio Planner is now developed enough that small tweaks are the biggest changes.  The 2019 Planner will look very similar to the 2018.  We reached out to you all for opinions on a few thoughts we had, and those ideas were pretty clearly vetoed through comments on the blog post and on social media.  Because our main goal is versatility for everyone, and we *do* listen to all feedback, we decided to not make any changes to the composition.  We did have a few other things that we knew would make the planner better, however, and we are revealing those in this series:

• The first change has already been revealed - upgraded ribbon!  We've wanted to upgrade the ribbon in the past but because we're *ultra* picky, we decided not to settle on something we didn't love.  We're truly excited about the new texture, thickness and durability that this new ribbon will bring.  See ya later, unraveling ribbon!

• Another change that we knew we wanted to make was with the front pocket, and it's purely aesthetic. (see above: ultra picky).  The folder in the 2018 Planner is constructed so that you can see the backing above the top edge of the actual folder.  In 2019, this is greatly reduced (and oh so pretty!)

• We concentrated on quality A LOT.  We were disappointed in some aspects of the 2018 Planners, which were largely printing errors.  To be clear - we like our printer very much, but we also expect a lot.  We expect near-perfect crops and construction, and we had multiple instances where planners were constructed less than perfect, and we put a lot of planners into the scratch and dent pile due to less than stellar crops.  We expressed all our concerns with our printer, and they have worked extremely hard to live up to our standard this year.  The production photos that we've seen are truly great, and we are very excited about the 2019 Planner!
• Speaking of excitement... oh wait, I can't reveal this one quite yet.  Stay tuned for next week's big announcement and our biggest change for 2019! What a cliffhanger!