Spring 2017 Board Report
Introduction
Hello fellow board members!
We are very excited to officially welcome you to the Type Hike Board of Directors - you are joining us at an exciting moment in our growth. We have been working hard over the past few months to transition our cool little project into an evergreen idea, growing for years to come. People often ask us how we came up with the idea for Type Hike but that answer is simple and boring - we wanted to do a project together and picked a common interest. We are rarely asked why we started the project.
We share the belief that every individual shares the responsibility to make the world a more beautiful place. As designers, we create beauty everyday, but it's rare that our work has any long-term effect or legacy. It became clear that the only way to realize our goal was to rally like-minded designers around a common cause. We want to bring people together not simply as designers, but as people who see beauty in the natural world around us - who are inspired by things we could never design. Type Hike's legacy are the bonds we form outdoors - whether you've joined the board as a lawyer, a teacher, a designer or a friend you believe there is something great, something worth protecting about our natural world.
This board is the group of individuals entrusted with the leadership and governance of Type Hike. As board members, you have three legal duties and three responsibilities:
Legal duties:
Duty of Care: exercise reasonable judgment and make informed decisions.
Duty of Loyalty: act in good faith to advance the interests of Type Hike.
Duty of Obedience: be obedient to our mission, bylaws, and policies.
Responsibilities:
Enhance the Type Hike’s credibility and public image.
Ensure organizational integrity and accountability.
Assist in shaping Type Hike’s future by planning programs and effectively managing our resources.
Beyond those simple obligations, your role in Type Hike is largely up to you. Many of you have already contributed to the project as designers - now you have the opportunity to help grow this idea into a strong and influential organization.
All you need to know about the board members
Nina Rygiol
Educator, skilled in phonics, usually pregnant.
Lesley Walker
Art appraiser, possibly related to Lesley Stahl.
Tony McAley
Designer, cat expert, Irish.
Audra Hubblell
Design Professor, bada$$ Badlands designer.
Christian Fricke
Father, dog owner, fatal with a Fürst.
Samantha Maerz
Animal enthusiast, legal wisdom, visited Portland.
Ben Kiel
Typography and typography.
James Louis Walker
More than just a pretty face, academic, designer.
David Rygiol
Unemployed illustrator, Polish philanthropist.
Board Structure
We've been working with Samantha to complete Type Hike's Bylaws. You can view the full pdf by clicking the button below. Our goal with the board structure is to allow Type Hike to continue functioning in its current super-efficient form. To achieve that we formed an Executive Committee consisting of Jim and David that will continue to make all day-to-day and project decisions. The board as a whole will only need to act on large issues like hiring, setting salaries, and dissolving the organization. That said, we welcome all input and would be thrilled to include you in any project you're interested in being a part of, just let us know.
Type Hike's first Annual meeting
When / Sunday, August 6th @ high noon
Where / The Bhive - 4661 Maryland Ave, St. Louis, MO 63108 (enter via the humidor staircase)
What / Lunch & Friendship
January - March Review
The past three months have been focused on preparing for the expected May-December busy season. A big part of that has been finding the most effective way to sustainably process the large volume of orders we experienced last November and December without killing David. We field tested two options, starting with a combination of office space and an intern. This worked great but still required a good amount of oversight and organization. Next we tried automating the fulfillment by partnering with a fulfillment company for the posters. This requires much less work and is less expensive as well.
Here are some of the milestones from the past three months:
- Series 1 officially added to the Library of Congress
- Shores designs submitted and prepped for the May 1st series launch underway
- Third generation 12x18 poster shippers designed that will reduce returns-due-to-damage to close to zero
- Exhibitions at Poler Portland, Poler Laguna, Mississippi State University, Wichita State University and Type Directors Club NY
- Printed three more 24x36 posters from NPS 100: Acadia, Mount Rainier, and Grand Teton
- Launched the Ascender Society
- Made significant improvements to website gallery and shop
- David spoke at AIGA Student Conference - one person applauded
- Completed planning for Series 3 and Series 4
Here is a report on our site's traffic. Sales were higher than expected during these bleak winter months, mostly due to a couple articles that came out in late January. This illustrates the huge effect press can have on sales.
April - August Preview
The next 5 months will be focused on promoting Shores and curating Series 3: Alphabeast, launching September 1st. Here is a look at some of the upcoming projects during this five-month period:
- Exhibitions planned for The Southern in April, Poler Laguna in May, Sketchbook Project in May, and Chicago Design Museum in June
- Partnership with Topo Designs - currently discussing how we could best collaborate to make something cool
- Partnership with Touch of Modern resulting in a mid-April campaign promoting a selection of the NPS 100 designs
- Partnership with Wander in the West for a summer-long exhibition/market that will rove all of the western states over the summer
- Partnership with REI - posters being used in displays in 93 stores nationwide
- David and Nina continue planning for potential biannual publication, Redline