Today we’d like to introduce you to Sally Perryman and Lisa Zale.
Sally and Lisa, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
COOL CORKS originated from our passion for education and love of the arts. After 45 years of friendship, 25 of those raising our families, we decided to go back to school for graphic design and photography. With several years of study under our belts, we decided to take a leap of faith and put our creativity to work. We kicked around lots of ideas and landed on the radical notion of updating the time-honored bulletin board. Everybody needs a bulletin board – why not make it cool! We discovered we could splash unique designs, colors, and photos right onto the cork and COOL CORKS was born!
We design, print, and frame all of our custom corkboards in Dallas, TX, using high-resolution graphics, logos, inspirational sayings, photo images, or original artwork, to produce a bulletin board that is functional and complements any decor. Our boards come in a variety of standard sizes (custom sizes, too) to fit the needs of our customers.
COOL CORKS corkboards are used to hang photos, artwork, reminders, shopping lists, tickets, gift cards, invitations, ribbons and medals, jewelry—you name it. And we have discovered that people all over the country are excited to find an artistic, colorful and personalized cork board to hang on their walls.
Our corporate logo boards have become popular among companies looking for sophisticated branding opportunities for their walls, warehouses, booth set-ups and special events.
COOL CORKS is a women-owned business and a partnership grounded in a lifelong friendship. We share a commitment to a quality product and exceptional service, which we believe enhances our customers’ experience.
It gives us a lot of satisfaction to know we have created something from scratch and have a hand in adding color and fun to the walls in homes, dorms, and offices all around the country.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We’ve had our ups and downs like any startup, and it took us a while to pull it all together. Between finding cork resources and printers, nailing down our process, finding a website designer… everything has been a new adventure for us. We have learned a lot along the way and continue to learn everyday. One of our biggest challenges is Marketing/Social Media. We want to gain followers and brand recognition but don’t have the budget to support hiring a company and we didn’t grow up in the social media age! We are always on the lookout for anyone willing to help out. Through the years, we have had so many kinds and amazing people give us advice, help us out, share information, show us patience and we are very grateful to all of them.
Please tell us about Cool Corks.
We started Cool Corks in 2012 because we wanted to update the tired old bulletin board and give them some POP! We wanted to make them colorful, decorative and functional for everyone. We specialized in custom designing patterns, themes, business logos and art and then print the images right onto the cork to make the space on any wall more interesting and fun.
We are proud of the fact that we started with an idea and took it to fruition. And like that cork material is environmentally friendly and considered sustainable because the cork tree is not cut down to obtain cork; only the bark is stripped to harvest the cork so the trees continue to live and grow. We pride ourselves in good customer service and want every customer to love what we create for them because we put our heart and soul into every board we make. We are unlike any other company in that we print full-color prints right onto the cork and we are involved in every part of the process that goes into designing, producing and packaging our corkboards. Every board is one-of-a-kind because every piece of cork is unique.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Since we actually grew up together and have been friends since we were about seven years old, we have many childhood memories together. We both loved getting all bundled up for the Cowboys games and drinking hot chocolate trying to stay warm. And the New Year’s Day Cotton Bowl Parade was a tradition we never missed. It was in downtown Dallas, and it was usually one of the coldest days of the year. Dallas had cold winters back in our day! We have seen Dallas grow in many ways and love that it is still a friendly place to live, full of opportunities and hope for an even better future. Go, Cowboys!
Pricing:
- We have standard sizes that range anywhere from $30 – $600 and we also do custom sizing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.coolcorkboards.com
- Phone: 214-207-5292 or 214-384-1560
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: coolcorks
- Facebook: coolcorks
- Other: www.etsy.com/shop/coolcorkboards
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