Some of you may know this from word of mouth or Facebook, but this spring, the owner and originator of Flatgoods passed away.
It was unexpected.
Very unexpected.
James was 38, healthy, active, and exuberant. Little did we know, his heart had some hidden problems. A heart valve failed, and he died quickly on a sunny Saturday morning.
Flatgoods has changed since he left. He was the visionary. The engine. But thanks to James’s hard work and planning, Flatgoods will continue! We can all expect some changes, but Flatgoods is still sailing.
Here at Flatgoods, we ask that anyone who reads this would keep James’s family, friends, and co-workers in your hearts. It’s been several weeks since he passed, but losses like this take time to heal.
We miss him dearly.
Thank you to all Flatgoods customers and cardboard believers.
James would be proud.
Read James’s obituary (written by his lovely wife) here.
The founder of Flatgoods, James, started with an interest in graphics, signage, and colorful printing. He also founder and president of a signage company, Icon Sign–that means he is a long-time expert in industrial printers and routers. Because he already had this equipment available (and had a dream to do something better for the environment), James explored the possibilities of cardboard: the recyclable, bio-degradable, and printable building block of Flatgoods. Using some of the coolest cardboard out there (Falconboard, read more about it here), he and a few others began tinkering and designing, and decided to start Flatgoods: a brand specializing in printed cardboard furniture and displays.
You might think that the leap from sign-making to furniture-making is a big one, but we’ve found an awesome overlap between the two realms. We’ve taken custom-printing from the sign world, and combined it with modern furniture shapes to make printable, sustainable, cardboard furniture.
Our furniture is great for your home, your dorm room, your kids’ rooms, your office, or your tradeshow with your brand printed all over it. Seriously. Flatgoods perform beautifully in tradeshow and commercial settings. We make custom tradeshow backdrops, custom display racks or shelves, custom signs, custom… lots of things!
Our goals are to
Sell items that are affordable
Design items for flat, inexpensive shipping
Create a product that solves environmental problems
With the right type of cardboard and smart engineering, cardboard can be as strong as wood. But it’s printable and recyclable. What more could you want?
Watch our video here to see and hear more about us!
Unlike your walls, Flatgoods love to be colored on! our cardboard takes paint and marker like a charm, and can foster creativity for your kids. Plus, the result is still practical, usable, and now unique to that child.
Safety First
You may have heard about all the scary chemicals that are put into furniture these days. You don’t have to worry about that with Flatgoods! It’s all clean, it’s all paper, and still plenty sturdy for your kids!
Valuable Lessons
Your can start your kids young, and teach them lessons on sustainability. Someday, when the life of your flatgood comes to an end, you can recycle it together. Then, this chair of theirs might become a paper egg carton, or a newspaper, or even a notebook for a famous author.
Good Deal
We work hard to keep our prices a low. With cheap shipping, sustainable practices, and inexpensive options, you’re getting a darn good deal.
Support us and our community
At Flatgoods, we’re pouring back into our community. In March 2013, Flatgoods donated chairs to the East Grand Rapids School District for students to decorate. These chairs were then auctioned off to raise money for furthering the arts in the EGR school district.
We’re also planning a donation to our community in just a few weeks, so stay posted!
Each of our furniture items is named after a famous furniture designer. Our medium (cardboard) is a bit unconventional, so we admire these past designers who thought outside the box.
The items we use to furnish our homes speak much about us. These items hold our belongings, our loved ones, our tired bodies after a hard day’s work. Through Flatgoods, you have the opportunity to furnish your life with unique, sustainable, and inexpensive furniture.
Here’s how Nas from Nawi Kids got “the coolest booth at the show.”
Nas ordered some furniture and a big backdrop for the ENK Children’s Club tradeshow in New York City on Oct. 19-21, 2014.
FG: Hi Nas! Thanks for chatting with me. For starters, tell us a little bit about yourself. What is Nawi Kids?
Nas: Nawi Kids is a line of kids gifts (plush toys, blankies, etc) based on our dinosaur characters: Coco, Ryder, and Frankie – more coming soon!
Inspired by one little girl’s love of dinosaurs, and her parents frustrating search for cute dinosaurs that spoke to girls, Nawi Kids was born in 2013. All our products are made in USA, with sustainability in mind, and packaged in reusable and re-sealable pouches.
Setup in progress! 3 Basset Stools, 1 Cobb Square Table, and 1 Jens Big Backdrop
FG: What led you to Flatgoods and to cardboard furniture in general? Sustainability? Uniqueness? Affordability?
Nas: Because we make all our products with sustainability in mind, when looking to furnish our trade show space, it was important for us to find something reusable, easy to move, but cool! When I saw that I could customize everything, I knew Flatgoods would be perfect.
Nawi ladies at the tradeshow
FG: Could you talk about your experience with Flatgoods–as a company and the products themselves? Here are some ratings to get you started:
Nas: Pricing: Poor–1 2 3 4 5–Great
Shipping Costs: Poor–1 2 3 4 5–Great
Assembly: Difficult–1 2 3 4 5–Easy
Website: Confusing–1 2 3 4 5–Easy to use
Overall Experience: Poor–1 2 3 4 5–Great
Other Comments: My experience was great overall, especially with you, Tina. Thank you so much for keeping everything on time, working on the shipping costs, and being so quick to respond.
Cardboard! Awesome!
FG: What did people think of your booth at the tradeshow?
Nas: The response was overwhelmingly positive. People were intrigued, and I can say that we had the coolest booth at the show.
FG: Do you plan to re-use your items?
Nas:Yes, we have stored everything and plan on using for several more shows in New York.
FG: Okay, last question! Would you recommend Flatgoods to a friend? Why/why not?
Nas:Yes! Absolutely. I had a great experience and the furniture was everything I wanted it to be.
FG: Thank you so much, Nas. It’s been a pleasure working with you!
Ya hear that, folks! Coolest booth at the show!
Flatgoods tradeshow booths pack a visual punch, and are much more affordable than competitors. Plus, they’re recyclable! If you or someone you know is doing a tradeshow soon, send them our way.
Cobb Square Table, starting at $29 Basset Stool, starting at $25
At Flatgoods, we’re making useful, creative furniture while also pursuing practicality and sustainability.
With this dry-erase map of the United States printed onto a kid-sized table, your kids can grow familiar with the United States early on. Maybe if I’d had this table growing up, I wouldn’t have struggled so much in U.S. Geography!
Kids can color and write in dry-erase on their map, then erase it and do it again. Or, you can buy it without the dry-erase surface for one-time coloring.
This table is also a great size for doing crafts, playing games, etc., and it’s a sustainable option when furnishing a home or classroom on a budget. For product information, click here.
Environmentally Responsible Corrugate Is How We Roll.
When I tell people that we make furniture out of cardboard, the typical response is a skeptical eyebrow. Sure, it sounds crazy at first, but with an awesome material like Falconboard, we can take cardboard to a whole new level. This is the material we use for all our “Flatgoodies.”
A product of Hexacomb, Falconboard calls itself “the environmentally responsible graphic display board.” For efficiency’s sake, we’ll call it cardboard.
Why is Falconboard so awesome?
It is extremely rigid and stable.
It’s surface is clean and smooth–great for printing.
It can be cut or folded into a variety of shapes and maintain strength.
Also, it’s sustainable. This deserves a list all its own:
Deksia, a brand strategy firm based in Grand Rapids, was tasked with developing a tradeshow booth for one of their clients, Chop. With the budget provided, creative director Josh Ryther and senior designer Jeremiah Elbel would normally have been limited in their production options for the tree service company. Fortunately, Flatgoods’ low-cost, high quality service allowed them to achieve their goals, and then some.
“We wouldn’t have been able to do anything for the same price (somewhere else). It would have cost three times as much to do,” Ryther said. “With Flatgoods, we were able to design a fully immersive experience that subtly changes your sense of place, which is really hard to do in a 10 x 10 booth. It gave us the opportunity to really draw attention to the brand.”
A three-panel booth was designed, with each panel featuring an education point relating to Chop’s services. “We designed it with Flatgoods in mind. We hadn’t really designed much with them, so we had to devise the structure. But we knew Flatgoods was capable of building anything we could imagine,” Ryther said.
With the low cost of production, Deksia realized they’d have money left over to make something special. “We decided to create a table to go in the center of the booth,” explains Elbel. “We made it bright red, which complimented the whiteness in the backdrop. It really helped create an atmosphere.”
Both Deksia and Chop were extremely pleased with the final product.
“Not only was the solution cost effective, but the actual product itself connected with the values of the company,” Elbel said, referring to Flatgoods’ premium, sustainable cardboard material.
“I think a booth of this caliber builds trust with consumers when they see it,” Ryther said. “It’s extremely professional and extremely forward thinking. It makes an impression, and it wouldn’t have been possible without Flatgoods.
Sustainability in business practices has become increasingly important to consumers in recent years. As the public becomes more informed regarding the environmental impact of manufacturing, many are making a greater effort to support companies that employ environmentally conscious practices. At Flatgoods, utilizing a sustainable business model is at the core of what we believe. Below you’ll find facts that demonstrate the amount of waste produced through normal activity, the positive effects that can result from sustainable living, and how businesses are making conscious decisions to improve both their environmental footprints and their bottom lines.
WASTE FACTS:
Every year, Americans throw away enough paper and plastic cups, forks, and spoons to circle the equator 300 times. (cleanair.org)
Ninety-five percent of our solid waste is disposed of in almost-filled landfills – and one out of every two of those landfills desperately needs repair to avoid leakage. (green-networld.com)
Every year, Americans use approximately 102.1 billion plastic bags, creating tons of landfill waste. (cleanair.org)
Americans produce enough Styrofoam cups every year to circle the earth 436 times. These cups are completely non-biodegradable, deplete the Earth’s ozone layer, waste enormous amounts of landfill, and are deadly to marine life. Ceramic mugs cost a few dollars. (sustainablelafayette.org)
RECYCLING FACTS
One recycled bottle saves enough energy to run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution, and 50% less water pollution than making a new one. (bc.edu)
If every American recycled one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save 25,000,000 trees per year. (bc.edu)
Recycling a soda can saves 96 percent of the energy used to make a can from ore and produces 95 percent less air pollution and 97 percent less water pollution. (mit.edu)
Recycling one ton of cardboard saves over nine cubic yards of landfill space. (mit.edu)
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS FACTS
Sustainability offers innovative firms opportunities for both top and bottom line benefits. New companies and brands have been created that are entirely green-focused, such as Seventh Generation, Clorox‘s GreenWorks, and Motorola‘s Renew mobile phones. Not only are these brands bringing in millions in revenues, they are also enhancing the brand image of their parent companies. (greenbiz.com)
GE launched its ecomagination initiative in 2005; by 2011, the company had sold $70 billion of green products and services, with $25 billion of that in 2010 alone. GE has committed to doubling its investment in its green offerings to $2 billion a year for the next five years. (environmentalleader.com)
Walmart is investing aggressively in energy and fuel efficiency. The $500 million it’s investing in sustainability projects have a payback of four years or less and has become an incredible profit engine for the corporation. Walmart embarked on this initiative in 2005 and is now saving more than $500 million a year – all of which is driven to the bottom line. (environmentalleader.com)
Flatgoods customizable furniture used in student art fundraiser
Products made by Flatgoods, a Deksia client that creates eco-friendly, affordable, and completely customizable cardboard furniture, were showcased last weekend at an event benefiting art education for local youth.
HURRAH!, an annual fundraiser hosted by the East Grand Rapids Schools Foundation and Alumni Association, was held Saturday, March 22 at the Urban Institute Of Contemporary Art (UICA) in downtown Grand Rapids. The event included food, a cash bar, live music, and a raffle, with proceeds going toward furthering the arts within the East Grand Rapids school district.
Holly Lampen, a middle school art teacher for the district, was introduced to Flatgoods while working with founder James Mikrut’s other company, ICON Sign. The school received a grant from the East Grand Rapids Schools Foundation to design twelve giant flags for its campus; while developing the flags with Mikrut, Lampen was shown his work with Flatgoods.
“It seemed like a really cool fit for a student artwork auction, where the kids could design the chairs, and we could use them to raise some money,” Lampen said.
Lampen utilized grant money from the Foundation to purchase six blank white chairs and four blank white stools from Flatgoods to use for the HURRAH! event. Students from Lampen’s art class drew on one of the chairs, using the blank canvas to create a unique art piece.
“We have three elementary buildings, one middle school, and one high school, and each building received a chair to decorate. We also have a couple extra chairs that were printed with sponsor names,” Lampen said.
The student-designed Flatgoods furniture was among the raffle prizes auctioned off at this year’s HURRAH! event. The money raised from these pieces will be used to purchase new art supplies and equipment, as well as to bring in artists to work with East Grand Rapids youth.
“(The students) loved it. They thought it was a really different project from ones we’ve done before. They all wanted them for their bedrooms,” Lampen said. “They’re like ‘oh my gosh, where can I get one of these?’”
Flatgoods currently offers kids chairs, cubbies, end tables, square tables, adult chairs, coffee tables and more in natural stock, white stock, or with a printed design. To purchase a Flatgoods custom furniture display piece for your home or business, head over to the company’s Kickstarter page to pledge.
“It’s such a cool product,” Lampen said. “I’m excited about it. I want some in our classrooms.”
Some of you may know this from word of mouth or Facebook, but this spring, the owner and originator of Flatgoods passed away.
Fun craft idea
Support us and our community
Here are some examples:
