Art Activities, School and Office Supplies

Our art activities business is evergreen, and aligning with long-term partners, such as Nickelodeon and Sanrio, has proven successful. In a time where many merchandising programs are transitory, we have worked to create enduring products. As a result, we have kept new adaptations of our Blue’s Clues® Handy Dandy Notebook on retail shelves for over seven years; our refreshed Dora the Explorer® line for five years; and our SpongeBob SquarePants® activities and school supplies line for the past four years.

We integrated Color Workshop’s Vivid Velvet® brand into our Flying Colors division in 2003 and made noticeable improvements to the line. We incorporated our Nickelodeon®, NASCAR® and Hello Kitty® licenses, added features such as die-cuts and double-sided printing to our artist quality poster board, and developed a range of products to include notebooks, pencil cases and jewelry boxes. We went from a niche player in velvet to a category leader in 2004, with increases in both shelf space and sales for Vivid Velvet®.

With our stationery business, including notebooks, mechanical pencils and markers, we are a leader in licensed school supplies at mass retailers, drug chains and office superstores, and in 2003, our SpongeBob SquarePants lunch boxes were big sellers for back-to-school. We created a new, innovative, non-licensed scrapbooking line for young girls in 2003 called My Overstuffed Life to capitalize on one of the fastest growing hobbies in America.

We developed a line of professional writing instruments called Syntech in 2003 and are pleased with the placement at retail. Our Focus® line of pens is a staple in the office supply and art aisles, and consumers pick from an array of stellar art supplies, including ROC Writers™, BloPens®, UltraColor® markers and Fireworks® glitter colored pencils.