Nuestros agradecimientos van dirigidos al equipo editorial y fotográfico de @inpalma por esta excelente cobertura en la 63ª edición de esta meditada revista de encanto, estilo y diseño de Mallorca.
Estamos extremadamente agradecidos de que nuestra principal galería de la península ibérica aquí en Palma de Mallorca aparezca en la edición del verano 2020 de esta preciosa revista de celebración sobre el patrimonio y el cultura de la ciudad. Ya a la venta en www.inpalma.com y a los quioscos y puntas de distribución habitual.
Our thanks goes to the first class photographic and editorial team at “In Palma” for this excellent coverage in the 63rd edition of this thoughtful “love-style magazine made in Mallorca”.
We are exceedingly grateful that our Iberia-region flagship gallery here in Palma De Mallorca is featured in the summer 2020 edition of this beautiful design and heritage-celebrating magazine. This latest incarnation of the magazine is available to purchase at www.inpalma.com and at kiosks and via resellers city-wide.
In conversation with Meg Gage Williams and Philip James Baber Co-Founders / Directors of Stick No Bills®:
Meg, where and when did you open your business (names and dates)?
We launched Stick No Bills® in an old colonial Dutch town house in the UNESCO living heritage city of Galle Fort, Sri Lanka, in 2011. That flagship gallery remains in Galle Fort to this day and has become firmly ‘on the map’ for the 2 million tourists who visit Sri Lanka each year.
What prompted you to do it?
We wanted to ‘be the change’ we wanted to see in the world. When we married in 2008 we vowed to found an eco-conscious, community-orientated, family-run creative business together.
We were also spurred on by a desire to innovate our way out of running a surf hotel on Sri Lanka’s tropical southern coast, 30 minutes south of Galle when we realised the hotel had been cursed ever since its Norwegian founder killed a cobra with a pitchfork on its lawn in full view of the surrounding fishing community.
So we came up with the idea of exhibiting our antique poster collection to launch an ecommerce-enabled art-sales business, that could become a force for good in the places we champion in the posters we digitally remaster where copyright allows, and / or design from scratch.
Any anecdotes?
Our original flagship gallery in Galle Fort was formerly a terrible hair salon called Fort Locks.
What do you offer?
When you visit our gallery we hope that our poster art transports you back in time to the mid century modern golden era of pre-mass tourism travel. We sell high quality prints of our designs in aeroplane-friendly bullet-proof packaging to all fellow lovers of Mallorca.
We have 142 ‘live’ images in our exclusive copyright collection of designs across 1800 unframed and framed product variants. Our unframed print prices range from €2.95 to €695 with free shipping worldwide on all orders over 55 Euros in value.
Our limited editions come wrapped in acid free tissue paper and accompanied by Certificates of Authenticity signed by the founders of Stick No Bills®. Increasingly we are selling these with almost the same frequency as our open edition in store In Palma. This is testimony to the high end characteristics of the 2020 visitor to this city.
Framed prints Made To Order are also available on request.
What characteristics distinguish you and make you special?
Philip:
All of our posters are authentic original designs and/or original vintage posters on which we have obtained copyright. We never plagiarise or even lightly copy other artist’s work. The designs start from ideas in my imagination that go into sketch form with mood boards. These pencil sketches then undergo 30 to 40 drafts of composition changes, character changes, colour changes, typography tests, print tests until they are perfect. One poster takes us generally about a month to create. When we first opened in Palma I approached a homeware store to see if they wanted to stock our postcards and the owner told me "no thanks, I can knock this kind of thing up on my computer in half an hour".
These tacky, computer generated souvenir images that belittle Mallorca and serve to reduce this complex, heritage rich place into picture postcards are all over the internet these days. Many amateur graphic designers have tried and failed to rip off our idea. I even see generic travel poster templates that you can download. More startlingly I recently saw a 'Mallorca travel poster' that was actually a carbon copy of a Cuban travel poster but the name had been changed to Mallorca at the top! With Stick No Bills® you are buying an authentic, high quality print or our artwork. We use the best paper in the world from the original Hahnemuhle paper factory in Germany that was started in 1584 and we print our limited editions and master one-off editions right here in Palma.
What is your objective with your business?
To be at the forefront of a 21st Century renaissance in the travel poster art movement; to enable our customers to bedeck their walls with the Gold Standard in all manner of stunning, magnificently framed travel poster art. To be a positive, creative, educational force for good in the communities within which we grow.
In what way do you think you can contribute to improving society from your business?
We hope that our designs can help define, cherish and promote the right type of respectful, sustainable, environmentally sensitive travel to the exceptionally fragile paradise islands of Sri Lanka and the Balearics in the years ahead.
What are your plans for the future?
At the creative level - to accelerate the pace at which we are building a London-headquartered global dream team of the very best poster designers alive in the world today. This company which generates all our original designs under Philip's art direction, is called The Poster Design Group. At the art sales level = to refine our e-commerce capabilities for both and framed products so that our clients, both on the ground and online can enjoy a truly omni-channelled experience of the Stick No Bills® proposition, inclusive of a seamless door-to-door 'pandemic-proof' service. To continue to fundraise for the vital humanitarian and conservation projects that we sponsor and to also champion the true owners of copyright as we go.
We have also just put the finishing touches on our franchising agreement and our first franchise will be opening in December in Sri Lanka. We have sown the seeds of some excellent partnerships in some incredible, iconic locations here in Mallorca as well as in Ibiza and Barcelona and we can't wait to get started on those. In other news we have another much-loved destination somewhere entirely different yet equally epic up our sleeve, so watch this space.
