So, a couple years ago I made a post about enamel pins and how to approach making them/what to expect from manufacturers–admittedly the post is pretty bare-bones, but it works. A lot has changed since then, both in the things we’re interested in making, and what we’re interested in posting about.

One of those changes I want to make is being able to address trickier topics. This one is a little bit about enamel pins, a lot about merchandise… and artist alley.

Let’s start small, easy like…

WHY IS W&W GETTING RID OF ALL THEIR PINS?

First–first! Not ALL of our pins–but I know some folks are looking at our current sale, and maybe you’re wondering why ALL these sets, all of a sudden.

After all, its only been 2 years since that last post where I was singing the praises of enamel pins and how versatile they can be as an artistic medium–I still stand by that, by the way. These are some real fun art objects to collect and one of the most satisfying objects to create.

Here are a few of the reasons why we’re personally making the shift:

As always–the two of us really appreciate folks expressing their interest and I know–I know that all these comments and that disappointment should be taken as a compliment, and in a lot of ways and by a lot of you it really is.

But there is always that One who takes it too far and I have to sit down and listen to a 20 minute rant about how “Actually Pluto IS a planet and we can’t just Take That Privilege Away!!!” and honestly? You sound silly. It’s a dwarf planet. It doesn’t have feelings. It didn’t LEAVE. It was re-categorised. If you actually cared you’d care more about the science than you do about your own nostalgia–BUT I DIGRESS…

I totally get feeling like you missed out on something… (been there) and for the record you can subscribe to our newsletter (or subscribe to our blog’s RSS feed) to avoid missing out in the future. I’d love to keep making these forever and ever so that everyone who wants one can have one….

But we ARE a small business. A small business that really prefers to spend its time, money and energy on books and stories rather than merchandise. Pins… currently overshadow our books by A Lot. I really want to shift the focus from pins to writing & paying for print runs of Myth Retold instead.

Admittedly though, those previous reasons are only a drop in the bucket… the biggest reason is…

ETHICAL PRODUCTION UNDER CAPITALISM.

Oh yeah. We’re going there.

This theme of ethics has been a massive topic of debate online… for a while. But more and more often, lately, I can’t help but sit here and feel a little bit guilty as the owner of a small business that creates items most might consider luxuries (or, at the very least, non-essential). The two of us spend a great deal our time trying to figure out how to maintain this while minimising our impact on the environment and the people who live in it–(most especially lessen our impact on the people who make the things we sell when we mass-produce.)

So I’m going out on a limb here and bringing out a tough topic. But if you’re reading this, maybe you’re also an artist and maybe you’re also worried about our environmental impact as artists/creators/small business owners.

Maybe that doesn’t worry you too much, though–you’re just a small fish in a big pond. It’s not like you have any Control over the way things are handled. It’s not like you can Afford to do the right thing–that’s the responsibility of the Bigger Businesses.

Hm. I wonder a little, how big does one have to be before we start to take responsibility of the damage we’re doing? Intentional or not. I can tell you for a fact that while a lot of it is unintentional… a lot of it is really many folks turning a blind eye to their own impact.

Look, we can’t be perfect, that much is true. But choosing to run a small retail-focused business we, like everyone else in the Artist Alley, are right at the front of consumption. Like it or not we do have a responsibility not to fall into the fast-consumption pipeline. We have a choice on whether or not we’re making items that will last for a trend or will last for a lifetime.

Wow that sounded intense, lets reel it in just a little bit.

---

WHERE DO I EVEN START?

Okay, so we’re now taking into consideration maybe the things that we make can become a problem if we’re not careful/thoughtful about what it is we’re doing. What can we start to put this consideration into? What’s the first step?

Let’s start here:

NONE of these above things are foolproof. We’ve made our own mistakes in production, thought of things only after it was done the first time. But the point is to avoid doubling down on a past mistake and try to pivot to doing Better.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Next we figure out production. I know we started this blog post about enamel pins but we spend a lot of time weighing out the pros & cons of all the items we make. Sometimes this’ll… be a bit paralysing. It can feel extremely heavy, taking it all into consideration. This is a little bit where my brain goes:

It’s a lot. It’s supposed to be a lot. There are many factors in creating that we just can’t shirk onto anyone else’s shoulders because, at the end of the day, we’re the ones in control and making the decisions. This isn’t to say that it isn’t worth making the things that you make (though after thinking about it this long–it might start to feel that way.) The point here is not to dissuade the act of creating, but to encourage thoughtfulness. Maybe ask yourself why you are making the item you’re making. Chances are if the only reason you want to make that thing is because you’re chasing a trend (because it’ll ‘make a quick buck’)… that might not be reason enough to make it in the first place.

This might seem like I’m staring directly at fan-artists but it turns out that both in fan and original artwork circles, trends rise and fall. It’s worth stopping for a moment and asking yourself a few questions, regardless:

These lists aren’t exhaustive, but a jumping off point. It’s important to consider. Production means making mistakes, by default. There’s nothing we’ve made that hasn’t come with an, ‘oops’ on our own end. Things go awry, things go south… but what do you do when these mistakes happen? Do you toss the mistake? Do you allow the mistake to have itself a second life through a discount/by giving it away?

I think it’s important, as small business, not to fall into the same habits big corporations have built over time. Filling landfills with fodder that didn’t sell… and refusing to give it away to people who might still make use of it anyway. Tossing merch that still works is like throwing day-old donuts in a locked dumpster.

If you live in North America… a friendly reminder that our recycling system… isn’t Actually Recycling Anything. As the old saying goes:

REDUCE > REUSE > RECYCLE

In that order (and always focus on the first two Rs). Keep this in mind for our last step a little bit later.

OKAY NOW WHAT?

Now, we talk through manufacturing. We’ve concepted, we’ve designed, we’ve worked out the best of our logistics as we can. Now we’re ready to manufacture the dang thing. We’ve already thought about where and what and how. We’ve thought a lot about our eco-footprint with this item.

Now it’s time to talk about how to treat your manufacturer… with professional respect and integrity, because these are human people not exploitable machines. You decided to outsource a skill to practiced hands. That doesn’t come without its own price and show of respect. (I’m looking at you: the anglophone North American population especially).

In the same way a rude customer rubs you the wrong way serving them, being the rude customer to a manufacturer is really just… hey pot? meet kettle. You see what I’m saying?

To avoid frustration and miscommunication on your end, you might want to brush up on/learn the following (all dependent on what items you are making):

Look at their website/contact. Look into what the item you are making might require. If it’s a plush, would you need a prototype? Are there sample swatches you can request? If you’re working with printing are you familiar with paper samples or could you order a test print? Enamel pins might require some pantone knowledge if you’re especially picky about the final colours. It’s your job to learn what the industry standard is for the item you are trying to make. You don’t need to be an expert but it doesn’t hurt to meet the manufacturer halfway.

Write your email in a clear and concise way. You’ll want a friendly professional greeting & be very clear about what you’re asking for. If you’re not sure How Much to order you can always ask questions, quote for varying quantities. Any manufacturer worth their weight in gold is worth listening to, especially when they talk about what their limitations are. Some places just wont have the means or tech to do what you’re asking. You either choose to work within their means or move on.

Being patient goes a long way here. If you’re outsourcing, communication mishaps happen. It’s especially important to remember that if you’re working with a manufacturer in a country whose language is not primarily English, they might be translating through apps and third parties–so be clear. Illustrate your ideas, and be patient if errors come up.

Be flexible. Look. You’re turning a concept in your brain into a reality and sometimes reality is gonna bite you in the ass. Paper prints darker than your screen. Enamel skews neon in some colours. Plush and fabric has limits to its colour tones. If you want to avoid surprises, request proofs. Botched orders happen, but you’re also responsible for inquiring about proofs/samples in order to check and avoid certain errors.

Even if you have a botched order on your hands… how much of a perfectionist are you being? There are a LOT of you who will melt down over a few fairly minor deviances from your initial sketch/idea/artwork–is this something only YOU are going to notice? Or something a buyer will notice? Even if something isn’t Perfect, doesn’t mean it’s Defective.

And listen, even when you are as careful as you can be and follow things as close as you can, the chance of a bungled project now and then is always a risk in this business. Do you take that bungled project with grace, or is your first inclination to blame the manufacturer? Was it even Their Mistake to begin with? Or was there a middle-point that could have been reached?

I’m not saying don’t get your money back if your order was a mess. There are definitely firm but graceful ways to handle it without becoming a total fucking prick. I’ve left manufacturers who have lost a bunch of business from us just because they were painstakingly slow to respond to emails. I’m not saying to stick with a problem, obviously, just know your own limits and your expectation and know not everyone is going to meet it. And learn how to step away professionally.

Likewise… when things DO go well: it sure doesn’t hurt to let a manufacturer know when they’ve done a great job. The work they do is pretty fucking thankless over all. The least you could do is toss a 5-star rating, a compliment, a little tip of your cap. It feels nice. It feels good.

Okay okay, moving on.

LAST STEP?

Alright, we’re at our last steps here! It’s been a painful process (I’m sure), taking all of this into consideration, you finally have a product, an item. But if you’re selling it, you might want to keep in mind what goes into packaging it. There are about a hundred bajillion options out there and a lot of them, in my opinion, are really unnecessary fodder. A lot of the questions we ask ourselves here are pretty similar as the ones we ask ourselves above, but now we’re looking less at longevity and more towards single-use. THIS step is probably the easiest one to fix, it was the first step we took towards a more eco-friendly approach with our own business. So much so we’ve even brought it up before.

But to avoid repeating ourselves too much we’ll look at a few questions we ask ourselves both for product packaging & shipping–

All packaging is going to be single use in some way, you’re trying to aim for something that’s easy for you but also easier on the environment. There are limitations here with manufacturers. I’ve found, personally, that opting to save boxes from online orders & re-use them is pretty cost effective and kinder to the planet. If push comes to shove and you don’t have enough, the next best option is to look into packaging methods that can be re-used themselves OR are at the very least made with recycled materials/made to compost/etc. Opting for locally made (or nationally made) items decreases your carbon footprint getting those items to you, too.

Also just–avoid ULINE. They’re fascist supporting dillweeds. I’m tired of seeing people use them. There are MANY other options to pick from.

---

HOW DOES THIS INVOLVE ENAMEL PINS…?

Circling back to the topic of Enamel Pins, as they pertain to the environment, and tying neatly into the bow of over-consumption…

Enamel pins first really boomed into a new trend in artist circles… I want to say back in about 2015-16. We made our very first enamel pins in 2017. At the start, the enamel pins produced by artists were eye-catching pieces of mostly original work. It was a bold new medium people were really experimental with, and really pushing the boundaries of the medium itself.

In that time we’ve also watched it shift from ornate, original, and filled with heart… to mass produced copies of trends. Going down the same route as plastic keychain charms. A convention staple, a ‘way to diversify your catalogue’ but less and less of this attempt to make something interesting and unique.

While Artist Alley struggles with this problem… we were also invited to participate in Backerkit’s PINTOPIA push. Aside from the prompt and platform being pretty transparently dismissive of artist qualms and input, (and more and more as time went on) this particular discord server opened my eyes to a lot of the mentality behind some artist’s… “creative process”. Let’s just say, some of you are really after that bottom dollar–doesn’t really matter who you trample on the way up.

But another thing was brought up there: Why can’t we make enamel pins locally? Why is every alleged local manufacturer of pins outsourcing to China?

Turns out there are 2 running stories:

I’m not going to pretend to know the exact nitty gritty logistics behind how pins get made but after reading a few articles on the subject… you start to see some patterns both in the materials used, production footprints and general toxicity, not just for the environment but the people actively making these items… for you.

It just stopped sitting right with the two of us and the deeper we dived on everything else, the more we came to realise what a problem this could be as trends in an Artist Alley where it isn’t just our table producing enamel pins, but many–sometimes hundreds. It started making us think about Artist Alley as a whole, and how Artists who participate in Artist Alleys are very quick to shirk the blame or avoid responsibility by claiming: “I’m just one small fish in a big big pond” or “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism”.

Except you’re not consuming. You’re producing. And you sure are a cog–a piece in a massive, cantankerous machine. So let’s give it some thought, shall we?

---

ETHICAL ARTIST ALLEY

Let me draw you a little word picture.

Windy & Wallflower has over 80 different designs in enamel pins. Each design has a print run MINIMUM of 50 units… (our personal maximum is 150–but I know folks who print Much More.) In our inventory alone we have had anywhere from:

4,000-12,000 ENAMEL PINS.

That’s just accounting for our table and ONLY accounting for Enamel Pins and, granted, we don’t bring EVERYTHING to a convention. But we still have print minimums, so whether or not we choose to bring everything to a con, they still exist in storage, for various future cons. If we want to play the math fair, we bring anywhere from 5-10 copies of each design to a con. If we bring every single design, we’re looking at: 400-800 enamel pins for one table.

Let’s take our local anime convention as an example: Otakuthon. This convention had about 400 Artist Alley Tables (we’re not even looking at Vendors.) And walking through Artist Alley, a good 50-75% of those tables were selling enamel pins. Lets use 250 as a base number of tables selling enamel pins, and to be fair, we’ll cut W&W’s lowest number in half because we’ve been making pins for about a decade and most tables fluctuate between 20-40 designs (yeah they rack up a bunch.) We’re looking at: 50,000 enamel pins!! Just at one convention alone! If we want to low-ball it even more to if just 250 tables sold 15 designs, that’s still: 18,750 enamel pins.

That’s not even including backstock! If we’re looking at tables having anywhere from 15-40 pin designs you’re looking at backstock requirements that are at a MINIMUM of:

187,500-500,000 ENAMEL PINS

Made by artists from a single Artist Alley alone! This is lowballing. I’m assuming each maker of pins has anywhere from 15-40 designs and is ONLY printing 50 of each design. And that’s only for just a bit over HALF the artist alley. Double it and we’re already in millions of small items made by toxic means, sold for less than they are valued at and bought for peanuts.

This isn’t even an Artist Alley that’s THAT BIG. Your small fish in a big pond’s ripple effect starts to make real waves when trends like these catch on.

If EVERYONE has the same attitude “I’m just a small fish” who, then, starts to take that responsibility? How much longer do we all keep pushing and making without thinking about our bottom line here?

This excludes a lot of the way people package these items in plastic waste… even when compostable transparent sleeves exist to replace those. I’m bringing this up because I’m the annoying guy in every discord server reminding people it’s illegal to sell items packaged in single-use plastics here in Montréal, and being faced with artists who refuse to pick compostable packing options because they asked the Government and the Government said, “Oh uhhh, well, just as long as it isn’t shopping bags and it’s just a plastic sleeve on every single print you make, that’s fine ig!” (It’s actually Not Fine. Do Better.)

I’m literally handing people eco-friendly options on a silver platter that cost just as much IF NOT LESS THAN their plastic counterparts. It’s maddening and infuriating because I walk into AAs and shops where people just completely refuse to take any accountability for the things that they do and the things that they make and went with the 100% virgin plastic options instead. Yes. I can tell. The compostable eco-sleeves have a different texture than your virgin plastic.

And I’M the one who comes off like an annoying asshole.

I can’t begin to stress that these are the numbers for Enamel Pins Alone. The numbers for these plastic charms that break and shatter just by LOOKING at them are easily double if not TRIPLE that number and it’s just plastic plastic fodder of trends that end up in a landfill by the end of the YEAR if not the end of the MONTH–

---

Okay, take a breath.

---

One more.

---

Okay, let’s finish this post off.

---

CONCLUSION

So what’s my point here? What am I trying to get at? Am I just trying to scare all the young artists out of Artist Alley?

Not exactly. I think if that’s the conclusion you derived from this post, then the point was missed entirely. I think at the end of the day, I’m tired of this thoughtless drivel. I’m tired of asking people what their process is and being met with a glazed over look. I’m tired of people hiding manus because they’re competing with one another. I’m tired of this squeezing blood out of a stone mentality when it comes to underpaying your workforce.

I’m really going to need artists to work with intention. To create with gusto and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing. What are you doing?

🤘🤘

Think about it.