Shop @shop_nextchapterstudio PLUS 5 local vendors, and bring the kiddos to take a picture with a real Santa!
Shop from local makers including:
All at @shop_nextchapterstudio during @nobhillmainstreet Shop & Stroll!
See you there!
Shop from local makers including:
All at @shop_nextchapterstudio during @nobhillmainstreet Shop & Stroll!
See you there!
Retail = anywhere we sell direct to consumer.
Brick & Mortar = in person retail store, Shop @ Next Chapter Studio.
Custom Printing = cards we print for other people and lines.
Workshops = in person printing lessons.
Wholesale = all of our B2B.
Here are a few category breakdowns:
As a comparison, here's 2023:
In general our business continues to grow! I’ve seen a few illustrators do breakdowns like this and have found it super insightful. Businesses with many revenue streams fluctuate year to year. It was honestly a little surprising to see these numbers come together and helps us know what to focus on in 2025. I’d love to see Custom Printing and Workshops grow even more! And a good reminder that we are first and foremost a Wholesale business, and that other small businesses are our primary customers.
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As the hot Albuquerque summer winds down, we send off our first official college intern Jade (in bright blue) back to St. Edward’s University to finish her senior year of college.
Jade worked for us as an employee all summer on her capstone project: researching, designing, assembling and printing our newest product, Next Chapter Studio’s dated yearly calendar notebooks; a monumental production and manufacturing challenge that Jade was able to tackle head on during her tenure with us.
Jade hopes to continue designing with Risograph at the Riso lab in Austin this year, and leverage her talents and experience into a future career in printing.
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Earlier this year, @anthropologie reached out to us about licensing our print designs for their Spring ‘24 apparel line. Riso reproduced on sweaters?! We of course said yes and were excited by the prospect of bringing our designs to a new medium and audience.
Working with their designers, we wanted to ensure our bright and colorful designs that work on paper, had the same vibrant effects in fabric. And we think they knocked it out of the park! We’re super pleased with the quality - the sweaters are beautiful and soft cashmere.
Get the sweaters here before they run out!
Browse the products that inspired the look!
Below are some process sketches, images from the Anthropologie website, and comparisons to the original prints!
 
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Product and design photos credit Anthropologie.
Come by Shop @ Next Chapter Studio for loads of celebratory deals!
– send a free postcard
– special edition "Stationery Day" items
– 10% off all stationery items
Saturday, Aug 5 10am - 5pm
109 Hermosa Dr SE
Not in Albuquerque? Check out other participating stores here!
We're so grateful to Kristina of Calliope in Natick, MA who started this wonderful day. And who creates some great special edition merch!
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The store is located at 109 Hermosa Dr. SE, right in the heart of Nob Hill! Our starting ours will be Th,Fr 12-6 and Sat 11-5.
The 'Shop @' will carry dozens of unique brands we have hand selected from across the USA, including over 100+ of Next Chapter Studio's very own riso greeting cards made in the factory behind the shop.
We hope you'll stop by!
-Lauren and Brian
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A few months ago, Next Chapter Studio made its first foray into custom greeting card orders. We currently don’t advertise this service anywhere, and have been figuring out the business model behind it for a while.
Fortunately for us, we were contacted by Google to help them launch a stationery line for their merchandise store.
Throughout the process, we worked with the Google designers to make their greeting card designs come to life in risograph - guiding them how to create the print files; matching riso ink and envelopes colors to sync with their brand.
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We love the designs and cards we were able to collaborate on with them, and help bring risograph to the mainstream!
Looking forward to 2023, we hope to open up our services to custom greeting card orders - stay tuned!
In the meantime, check out all the Risograph stationery on the Google Merchandise Store!
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All photos credit Google Merchandise Store
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This year we had the privilege to participate in the Printed Matter fair at the Santa Fe Railyards!
At the event, we set up our own tent and had an offering limited edition Risograph prints as well as some of our latest and greatest greeting cards. We also taught people the basics of Risograph the process, the machines, color separation, and the soy-based inks.
It was great to connect with all the other local New Mexico artists, see their printed goods and learn about all the different types of printing methods.
Check out the photos below!
The Summer Expo Market is upon us! Look for Next Chapter Studio at the following markets this summer to order new cards, prints and find great deals!
We'll be featured at Atlanta, Vegas and NYNow by American Design Club.
Drop by and say hi!
| Market Name | Dates | Booth # | |
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July 13-17, 2022 | B2 1-907 | |
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Faire Summer Market | July 19–22, 2022 | ONLINE |
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Las Vegas Market | July 24 - 28, 2022 | E-1413 |
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NY Now | August 14-17, 2022 | #1119 |
We are excited to announce a selected amount of Next Chapter Studio's risograph prints will be available on dormify.com.
For this offering we produced new sizes for our print designs, making the prints available in 8x8, 8x10 and 10x14.
Dormify caters to the stylish college student, who wants a nicely decorated dorm room. They specifically like prints and posters that are small and medium sized to fit inside small spaces; a perfect fit for Next Chapter Studio risograph prints!
]]>All images credit: Dormify
Cool news out of New York City: This upcoming weekend, Next Chapter Studio will be featured along side 11 other emerging brands at Instagram @shop's first ever mobile pop-up shop!
At the event, folks will be able to browse all the cool brands, and order our cards via the Instagram app on their iPhone or Android device.
If you're in the meatpacking district, come by and check it out, it's going to be super cool!
Corner of W14th St & 9th Avenue
May 20th, 2022 | 11am - 7pm EST
May 21st, 2022 | 10am - 6pm EST
Update:
The Instagram pop up was a great success, and many New Yorker's ordered Next Chapter Studio's cards via Instagram.
Check out our feature below!
A common question we get asked frequently by other Risograph printers is, 'How do you remove these strange lines that keep showing up?'
To kick this troubleshooting article off, there are a lot of names for these in the community:
See the pictures of what we are talking about below.
These stripes occur when the drum is not used frequently enough and the ink inside it begins to stiffen up, and dry out. You heard that right, you aren't printing as much as you should be...
Also prefacing this to get it out of the way - we've seen folks mention that this could be related to the master's file format or master unit creating the gutters. While those variables can contribute to printing issues and strange lines showing up, the infrequent printing stripe issues we are referring to are easily identified by the 3 dark or 4 light ghostly lines showing up in the same locations. They are spaced evenly and consistently on the master; no matter the file that printed.
So moving along, there are three basic solutions for removing the unwanted stripes:
The first way and by far most preventative and easiest process is printing more. A comment I hear a lot of people say after encountering the issue, is that they only print a few copies "once and while".
The benefits of printing small batches is a big misconception in the RISO world. RISO machines are built and engineered to duplicate prints hundreds upon thousands of times! If the drums aren't running and spinning consistently with large quantities of prints, they are drying and locking up. Think of a RISO machine like a self-lubricating diesel fuel system on a truck... the more it runs, the more is lubricates!
And we're not talking about an increase from 5 prints to 20 prints. We mean increasing to hundreds of copies to keep your drum running smoothly. If you don't need to print that many copies, a better question to ask yourself might be, "why am I using Risograph then...?"
The second best way to remove the stripes is ink-cycling your drum. In our experience, this is the most consistent fix to remove the lines on each Risograph drum.
For this, you'll need a lot of sheets of cheap recyclable copy paper, and patience.
If the first two ways didn't help, the third way to remove the ink stripes is to fully clean out the drum. I would not recommend this process as a drum break-down is a messy proposition, and not for the feint of heart. But check out these resources on how to clean out if you have no other alternatives:
And there you have it. The lines/gutters/stripes are caused by the ink hardening in your drum, and are a sign you are not printing enough, so keep those drums moving!
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Hello everyone!
As we kick off 2022, we wanted to share our upcoming market schedule for those who may be attending. We have quite the schedule for this year, and will be at a total of 5 markets before April. As with last year, we are excited to be partnering with American Design Club at Atlanta, Vegas and NY Now.
Check out the 2022 schedule below!
| Market Name | Dates | Booth # | |
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January 12-16, 2022 | B2 1-816 | |
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Last Vegas Market | January 23-27, 2022 | E-1307 |
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Faire Winter Market | January 31 - February 4 | ONLINE |
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NY Now | February 6-9, 2022 | 2019 |
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SF Now / *Noted | April 28 & 29, 2022 | 509 |
Hello all -
Next Chapter Studio, along with our very own Creative Director Lauren Harms, has been named by Stationery Trends Magazine as one of the 10 greeting card designers to watch in 2022!
Thank you to Stationery Trends Magazine and Sarah Schwartz for highlighting such an amazing array of designers, and for nominating us.
You can check out the digital story here.
See a sneak-peek screenshot of the feature below!
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Today we are excited to announce that Next Chapter Studio is now available in 17 select Wegman's supermarkets in the North East of the United States!
Being carried in Wegmans is super exciting for us, as we LOVE Wegmans as a store, company and brand. Additionally, this is also the first time we are stocking and maintaining our own spinners with a store, offering between 64-72 cards in each spinner and location.
Find us in the following Wegmans stores:
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Market season is upon us, and this year we are kicking off our very first appearance at the NY NOW trade show with American Design Club!
See our newest selection of cards and prints at the American Design Club booth #2019 at the Javits Center, August 8-11 2021.
Find out more about the NY NOW expo here and our card selection at ADC #2019
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Hi all -
Mark your calendars! We're getting ready for the Faire Summer Market taking place July 27-29th, 2021!
This year, Next Chapter Studio will be participating in the virtual trade-show market for the second year in a row. We had such a great time last year, and the market was a great success for us, and our buyers.
Again as always, we'll be offering extended, tiered, discounts for our loyal stores that come to our Faire page during the market to place their wholesale orders on all our cards and prints.
For those unaware, these discounts are special as Faire will match our discount to offer an even greater deal! Below is a table of the discount tiers:
| NCS Discount | Faire Discount Match | Free Shipping | Order Minimum |
| 5% | 10% | $150 | |
| 10% | 20% | $250 | |
| 15% | 25% | Yes | $350 |
For more details on this year's market, head on over to https://blog.faire.com/thestorefront/faire-summer-market-2021-our-global-trade-show-event-is-coming-in-july/
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exciting news to share. For a second year in a row, Next Chapter Studio has won at the Greeting Card Association's 'Noted @ *Noted' awards.
This year, our card 'Greetings From Quarantine' won for 'Best Corona Themed Card.
“Every once in awhile, we like to add cards to our ‘Greetings From’ line that aren’t specific to a city or state. Quarantine, and staying at home, became universally relatable during the COVID-19 Pandemic and was an intuitive addition to the line. We like that it’s a funny twist on classic concept.
This card quickly started to sell well for us, in singles and packs, and has been getting lots of attention on social media. I think people connect with it because they’re looking for fun and lighthearted ways to reach out to friends and family, especially at this point in the pandemic. I don’t think any of us expected to still be staying at home a whole year later!” — Lauren Harms
Read more about the competition, the winners and nominees over at Stationery Trends and a great writeup over at The Paper Nerd.
]]>Check out the posts below! And don't forget to follow us on Instagram for the latest on all our new cards: @nextchapter_studio
]]>today we are excited to announce we will joining dozens of other card makers around the country as a Premium Exhibitor at the 2021 *Noted Greeting Card Expo.
*Noted is the only greeting card expo in the United States built and run by those in the greeting card industry.
This year's expo will be virtual only, and run from May 20 & 21, 2021
Retailers joining us at the expo will be able to purchase over a dozen new card designs and prints debuting for Summer 2021, at wholesale prices.
More information on attending the expo can be found here: https://www.greetingcard.org/noted-the-greeting-card-expo/
See here list for all the attendees:
https://www.greetingcard.org/2021-noted-exhibitors/
Big news on the wholesale front. We are participating in the Faire Winter Market this year! We had great success with last year's Faire Summer Market, and are continuing with the same great discount matches, as well as unveiling new cards for 2021!
10% off & Free Shipping / $175+
20% off & Free Shipping / $250+
25% off & Free Shipping / $350+
(Discounts listed include the Faire double-match)
Go to our Faire page (https://nextchapterstudio.faire.com) February 1-3 to get our new cards and the Faire match!
More information on the market here: https://www.faire.com/winter-market-2021
]]>Big updates! Next Chapter Studio is starting off 2021 firing on all cylinders.
First and foremost, big moves for us as we packed everything up in Brooklyn, and moved to New Mexico to expand our business and studio. More exciting announcements in the coming months, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, we are excited to show off our new risograph studio, featuring a brand new RISO machine (now we have a total of 2!), and new storage and floor matting.
Scroll down below to see an inside look at our new digs.
Our new studio setup! Ruby and Rosie, our two RISO machines in front of the mirror wall. And our LED neon sign still going strong!
Our original risograph, Rosie, a RISO EZ590.
Our newest addition to the studio, an EZ591 that has been dubbed Ruby the RISO. After a number of name suggestions submitted, our followers on Instagram voted for the name 'Ruby'.
The EZ591 was a logical addition, as drums are compatible between the 590 and 591. This means we can use our existing drums in both machines. We're already dreaming of new colors to add in the near future!
A wine rack filled with vegetable-based RISO inks. We have Black, Light Teal, Aqua, Yellow, Fluorescent Orange, Fluorescent Pink and Bright Red (for now...).
We keep a few cards sleeved and ready to go in these cardboard bins. Space is already tight!
Teal mats to dampen the sound, add comfort and even more color.
And of course, our shop dog Ronnie! :)
]]>If you have a quick minute, check out the feature giftsanddec.com did on us, as one of the "7 Coolest Finds" at the Dallas Market Temps. They spotted our simple and bright neon cards, saying
Check out the full feature here: 7 of the Coolest Finds at the Dallas Market Temps"After a pretty dim year, bright colors — especially neons — are in! The card collection by Next Chapter Studio certainly caught our eye with its fun colors that convey a sense of cheerfulness. The cards are sweet, simple and to the point, whether relaying messages of love for mom, birthday wishes for a friend or warm greetings for a new baby..."
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If you have a few minutes, and you're curious how Next Chapter Studio got started with Risograph and greeting cards, check out our interview with Cartinsiders, where we chat about how we started our business, our progress growing a small business during 2020, and how we use Shopify to manage our ecommerce!
https://cartinsiders.io/next-chapter-studio/
-Brian & Lauren
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We’re participating in the Faire Summer Market!
August 26-27
Use this link to see our Faire shop.
Faire will be matching our promotions! Which means…
5% 10% off orders over $125
10% 20% off orders over $175
15% 25% off orders over $225
<< We’ll be releasing new cards + prints for the market >>
See you online!
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Hello Friends!
Lauren and Brian here, we hope you are well and staying safe at this time. We have been so impressed to see how many of you have adapted your businesses while your doors have remained closed, finding new ways to connect with your customers. It has been inspiring and gives us hope for a bright future. We know it has been an incredible task on your part, so we’d like to say “Great job!!! You’re amazing!”
We were slated to participate in the *Noted 2020 trade show in San Francisco at the beginning of May. While we were sad that it was cancelled, it was absolutely the right decision. Most of all we missed getting to see old friends and make new connections. And we were really excited about the new cards we had been planning! We’ve decided to go ahead with this release, and hope they bring some fun and cheer for summer.
Below you’ll see our Spring/Summer 2020 release, going on sale Monday, June 1.
Tie dye!
These cards show off the unique ink mixing of Riso printing, with rad and fun colors!
Retro Tunes
While you might not be making physical mixtapes any more, that doesn’t mean the sentiment is lost! With the popularity of our calculator cards we wanted to create something in a similar style and are so psyched about these, maybe even more than the “58008” card.
Our first artist collaboration!
Kapo Ng is a designer and art director based in New York City. His stylized and playful pineapples are such a fun fit for our colorful line of cards. A pineapple for every occasion!
New and Improved!
We’ve updated our Card Pack packaging with a fancy new sticker! This eye catcher is also printed on Riso. If there’s a card that you think would do great as a pack, let us know!
More Fluorescent Birthdays, you say?
No problem!
In case you missed it…
Our Social Distancing cards have been connecting people near and far, and even won Best New Card line in the virtually held *Noted Product Awards. While we hope the phrase “social distancing” soon fades away, we’ll keep all of these around for a long time to come. Sending love will never be a thing of the past.
Next Chapter Studio is a design and print shop running on Riso. We specialize in Risograph printing, creating greeting cards and art prints. Our mission is to make bright and friendly greetings cards for everyone using the environmentally friendly Risograph printing. Riso ink, made with soy, dries bright and colorful, allowing our fun designs to jump off the paper. Next Chapter Studio was founded in New York City in 2018. We design, print, and assemble all of our products by hand.
]]>To get the gist, photocopiers are more like huge laser printers vs. Risograph machines which are more like compact duplicator presses.
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While both machines can create copies, or print a digital file from a scanner or network connection, the way they output that 'copy' is a completely different process.
Photocopiers use a laser to heat up toner that fuses the powder to the paper. The process creates detailed images that can output at a medium to high speed. Each print is created individually, so it doesn't matter if you are printing 1 copy or 500. However, toner cartridges for photocopiers are expensive over time and can only use up to four colors. The balance of quality, expense and speed makes them suitable for high-end photorealistic copies and a popular choice in offices. Photocopiers can range in price between $500-$3000 new.
On the other hand, Risograph machines (RISO) create duplicate copies by etching a master template into a rice sheet (master) and creating all copies from that single master. Hence the classification - duplicator. The master is applied to a circular drum that pushes ink through tiny holes burned into the master. The paper is fed past the drum as the drum rotates, transferring the image. This creates copies very quickly, and is most effective when printing lots of copies of one document. Limitations of the RISO machine is that they can only apply 1 or 2 colors at a time. This creates the need for multiple passes of a sheet of paper to get full color prints. RISO machines are popular in churches, community centers and art studios due to their low expense and creative flexibility.
Used/refurbished RISO machines range in price from $1000-$12,000 depending on the features, print count, condition, and number of colors (1 color or 2 color).
New RISO machines can be acquired through RISO approved suppliers and cost around $25k-$30k, or can be leased for a monthly rate.
If you're interested in learning more about Risograph printing, check out our other articles:
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Hello everyone!
It's been a wild ride these last few weeks of quarantine, but want to let everyone know we are doing well; feeling blessed to be able to manufacture and design our cards from our loft space in Brooklyn, and are continuing to expand!
It's exciting to announce our newest wholesale platform is Bulletin.co. What is bulletin.co? It is a wholesale site dedicated to businesses founded or co-founded by women entrepreneurs. In addition, all the businesses on Bulletin are heavily curated and focus on makers of cool and unique items! Thankfully, the folks at Bulletin discovered us and we fit the bill!
We are selling all our Risograph cards and prints at our wholesale rates (50% MSRP, no-tax) on Bulletin.co, in every state, so check us out there.
For more information on ordering wholesale from us on Bulletin.co, please use this link
https://bulletin.co/brands/next-chapter-studio
Stay safe!
-Brian & Lauren
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