With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1484213
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 BCBUSINESS 93 BCBUSINESS.CA I N V E N T OR Y It's in the Cards Print is alive and well, especially during the holiday season. These B.C. businesses are making seasonal stationery that would make Santa himself jealous by Alyssa Hirose ( quality time ) DIRTY NOTE Vancouverite Kristen Trojanoski lost her job as an interior designer when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, but she dove right into disrupting another industry: single-use greeting cards. All of PlantedRoot's cards are made using compostable paper that's infused with wildflower seeds—bury them in dirt and watch them bloom. It's like two gifts in one. Online STICK TO IT The name of Jocelyn Wong's business, Something Yellow Studio, comes from her last name (Wong means yellow in Chinese). She says her experience as a POC living in Vancouver informs everything she creates— from tiny greeting cards to murals splashed across buildings. Since launching her business in 2016, she's printed, hand-scored and cut all of her cards from her home studio. Online NICE GREETING YOU Nanaimo-based artist Thao Nguyen founded Little Thao Studio in December 2018, when she first sold her greeting cards at a local craft market. What started as a side gig is now Nguyen's full-time career, and she's expanded her biz to include children's clothes and tote bags. Her original watercolour holiday collection is all kinds of soothing. Online SNARK, SEALED, DELIVERED In 2018, Jake Goossen designed a couple of watercolour town maps (Ladner and Tsawwassen, represent) and posted them on Facebook to see if anyone might be interested in buying them. That was the beginning of Nine Two Design Inc., Goossen's Delta-based company. Since then, Goossen has built up an impressive inventory of art, prints and cards—the latter sporting brutally honest greetings, even during the holidays. Online £ WHALE WRITTEN Art meets marine science in Natasha van Netten's work. Her eponymous studio (founded in 2016) is based in Victoria, and her drawings, paintings and 3D sculptures focus on cetology— that's the study of whales, dolphins and porpoises. While she exhibits her fine art at galleries and museums around the world, van Netten's hand-painted art is a more humorous medium for ocean-centered education: think orcas in ugly Christmas sweaters. Online OH WHAT PUN Wordplay and pop culture references rule all in Dangerfield Paper Co.'s greeting cards. Founded in November 2019 by artist Char Dangerfield, the Vancouver-based company makes hilarious paper gifts featuring characters from Disney to Marvel to The Office. Dangerfield's holiday cards are perfectly punderful (and she has Hannukah options, too—Happy Challah- Days). Online