This twelfth year of innovation and expansion has been incredible for @sticknobillsposters, both at our original flagship gallery in Galle Fort where unit sales have never been better (with huge thanks to our partners Liam and Natalie Hill for their resilience post terrorism and pandemic) and here in Spain where we have also had a record breaking year both at our Europe Flagship Gallery and also at Stick No Bills Poster Printworks Global Poster Gallery brought to you by our Mallorquín partners from within their 110 year old giant workshop. B2B and online sales have also never been better. So we thank you all wholeheartedly for your support.
As we get set to radically expand our presence on the Iberian Peninsula from our continental headquarters and manufacturing base in Barcelona, while deepening our reach across the U.S. and U.K. art markets as well as in Austria, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Brazil, the Middle East, Thailand, Bali, Australia, New Zealand and beyond, there is one description of what we do that has been buzzing around in my head these past few weeks.
So I wanted to share it with you:
"There are posters and then there are POSTERS, as in bona fide designs, as in Stick No Bills".
Antonia Carver, Founder / Director, Art Dubai 2010 - 2016, Director, United Arab Emirates Arts Foundation 2016 to the present & Director Art Jameel, 2020 to the present.
This quote from Antonia has stuck in my mind because it has made me consider what bona fide actually means in the context of 21st Century poster art.
The answer? Integrity matters. Literally. I found this to be as true today as I did in my previous career as a security analyst in high risk environments.
In the case of Stick No Bills® there are four cornerstones to this integrity and it’s my job to ensure that they are all consistently inherent in our modus operandi.
First, we pay royalties to the true owners of copyright. We shall not sell you prints without 100% assurance of the veracity and unassailability of our license to print.
To do this royalty tracking and paying of artists’ and / or production or archives entities’ dues forensically and accurately within the fast-paced art retail and travel market arenas within which we are growing takes serious and meticulous digital integration, a transformative process for which I must thank my genius sister in law Natasha Williams for helping me implement during the past five years.
Second, we source our materials from responsibly harvested, sustainable and wherever practicable ‘home-brewed’ and non-toxic sources. This is not always easy, cheap or quick, especially when one’s business hails from far flung islands. However, for us its the only way forward - there is still so much we have to learn and do to reduce our carbon footprint in this regard - plus I find that our clients appreciate us all the more for our bucking of the fast fashion trend with the more artisanal, analogue-era feeling and texture of our prints.
Third: we regard quality as paramount to our success. By this I mean how quality informs and infuses the full ‘turnkey’ spectrum of how you may encounter us, from how we manage our suppliers to how we treat and nurture our staff, to how we liaise with our licensors and territory partners, to how we satisfy our clients’ rightful desire for a positive ‘value for money’ experience of our brand wheresoever they find us, to the vibrancy and impeccable formats of our prints, to the excellence of our framing and hanging services, to our speed of turnaround and delivery, right through to the way we troubleshoot and find solutions when things go wrong.
Fourth: we give back locally by donating fixed percentages from our income from all sales to not-for-profit humanitarian, wildlife preservation and other conservation / regenerative projects underway in the maritime and terra firma communities wherein we operate.
All of these key attributes, I feel, amount, at the end of the day, to you investing in a Stick No Bills print that gives you an enormous sense of well being whenever you look at it whether you first came upon us as a serious collector, an interior designer, a hotelier, a home decorator or an independent traveller. And that deep sense of customer satisfaction, of you being inspired and uplifted by @sticknobillsposters, means everything to us.
Palma De Mallorca, April 2023.
