Online Projects & Ideas

Snap Shots is a regular feature in Scrapbooking & Beyond™. BamPop! is from the Summer 2009 Issue.
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This is the story of BamPop! – a company with so much energy that it has an exclamation point in its name. It is also the story of JJ and Jennifer Harrison, the two people who created BamPop! First, let’s talk about JJ Harrison: JJ was born in Southern California and is the oldest of four children in a very creative family. They moved to Utah when he was in junior high school. He was always interested in cartooning and wanted to become a comic book artist, but in his teens he drew and painted with realistic detail. While still in junior high school, JJ began to think that grades mattered, so he hunkered down and although he still had plenty of friends and fun, he graduated with a nearly perfect GPA. He took a break before going to college, playing with several bands and writing and recording music in his home studio. He returned to Southern California where he did promotional work for an independent record company. JJ had put down his pencil after high school and when he headed for college, he immersed himself in computer animation. “I thought it was the bee’s knees,” is how JJ puts it. While in his junior year in college, he began working on longer animated stories. During the storyboard and planning process, a wise professor encouraged JJ to start looking at graphic novels. Although he hadn’t read a comic book in ten years, JJ soon had that pencil in hand again and set aside his computer. He earned a degree in animation, with as many studio art classes in illustration and drawing as he could pack into his last two years of school. “I wanted to put myself in the position where I could draw as much as possible, all the time,” he states. 

Now, onto Jennifer’s story: Across the country, Jennifer Lichman, the second of two girls, was growing up in a suburb of Boston. A self-described “arts and crafts kid,” she took lots of classes, made projects nonstop and kept scrapbooks filled with friends’ photos cut into funny shapes. She was voted the “artist of the week” many times over while still in elementary school. To this day, her mother has the big pieces of construction paper that Jen decorated for the school bulletin boards. Jen loved her junior high school art classes, and although she didn’t pursue art in high school or college, she continued to make scrapbooks. In 1997, when an independent record company in California posted an opening on the Internet, Jen got the job. She passed out stickers, put up flyers, got the word out about the music as part of a “street team.” 

You guessed it. JJ and Jen were working for the same company. Their jobs led to what Jen calls “one phone call that turned into a lifelong event.” They talked on the phone about work-related matters until something “struck a chord,” and the rest, as they say, is history. JJ found a reason to fly to Boston; Jen went to Utah for a visit. Then Jen moved to Utah, and in 1999, they married. The two moved to New England for a while, but the tug of Utah was strong, so they returned. They now have a daughter (8) and a son (6) and are raising them near JJ’s large extended family. When Jen’s mother retired and moved there, too, the circle was complete. 

Throughout this time, Jen continued scrapbooking and turned her favorite pastime into something more. In addition to family albums, she began designing projects for magazines. But she wanted supplies that she couldn’t find in stores, so she turned to her talented husband. She wanted JJ’s artwork on her layouts and he complied, drawing all over them to make them “really graphic.”

The collaboration suited the two. In addition to the hand-done drawings, JJ turned her ideas and his sketches into digital patterns. They worked together, printed their work onto laser paper, then Jen would put the results into her layouts. They posted online and people wanted to know where the supplies were available. JJ and Jen were approached by several manufacturers, and many of their first designs were brought to market through other companies, but they decided that it was a better idea if they went into business for themselves. 

BamPop! was born in 2006. As JJ said, “We were putting down the stones for the road that we were going to build. We didn’t know we were going to have a company, we just wanted to make things and send them to people. We said to ourselves, let’s make a set of papers and if no one likes them, we’ll have a lot,” he said. “When we were working with music, we always worked with independent companies, so our own company grew out of the idea that smaller was better.”

They found a printer who was close to their home and were able to talk to the owners about their ideas, working hard to achieve the “pumped-up colors” that were their specialty. Right from the start, BamPop! was different. There has always been a lot of excitement about how many of the products were appealing to boys, though it wasn’t something JJ and Jen consciously planned. Though JJ’s computer wizardry plays a big role in the manufacturing process, every single line that goes into the products is first hand drawn by him. It’s what makes the quirky BamPop! style so special and so unique. Look closely at any of the papers, chipboard die cuts or clear stamps and you can feel the evidence of a human hand at work.

JJ still does lots of consulting, web development, and graphics for clients and is on retainer for a large corporation. He says that he “grew up online” and is part of the generation that builds websites without giving it a second thought. He considers the BamPop! work to be the “break” or the “fun part” of his days. Perhaps it’s because he and Jen love working together so much, with a shared vision and shared values. 

Even with a generous amount of talent and endless energy, Jen and JJ still had to learn to run the business while on the job. They put it this way: “We are artists, parents, and owners of a small company that stepped up to the plate with the ‘big boys’ by joining CHA, aligning ourselves with how other companies did things. We didn’t know about supply chain management, but we did know that people liked what we were doing.”

The company name BamPop! came from the comic book culture. It sounded like fun and reminded JJ and Jen of how Batman would go “Bam Pop Pow!” By not having the word “scrapbooking” in their moniker, it allows the company to manufacture products in other categories like T-shirts, stuffed toys, children’s clothes, clear stamps, and someday books, because JJ has always loved the way books give you a beginning, middle, and end. JJ is also creating digital themes for Scrapblog.com – available in pieces or whole kits. “We don’t plan to become a digital company, but we like being able to do mini sets and holiday things in digital form,” he said.

“We love to do clear stamps because they give people so many options,” Jen said. “We’re all about the word bubbles and faces. We both grew up on comic books,” she told me. “I had Donald Duck, Betty and Veronica, while JJ grew up on Superman, and we share a love of Scrooge McDuck.” 

Though it sounds like this profile is more about JJ than Jen, that’s the way Jen prefers it. “JJ is the star of our company – I’m the mom, and that’s how I like it. I do the crude sketches; he makes it good. I’m the one who packs the boxes that leave the house.” Jen’s mother and their local friends pitch in when there are large orders to ship. “We have packing parties,” Jen said. “Our whole idea about design is free-spirited. We make only things that both of us love. We don’t think about the mass market, what’s going to sell the most. The fun of being a little guy is that we can sell what we want, like a parachuting robot, a clear stamp alphabet filled with monsters and cupcakes, or release one or two letters at a time. There’s not a schedule or someone over our head saying, ‘you can’t do that’ – it’s not about the money, it’s about making products that we think are awesome,” Jen said with obvious pride. JJ added, “Our products are designed to make people happy. It goes back to when I made drawings for my grandmother and that made her happy. It’s all about the fun!” 

Share the fun by heading to the BamPop! website, www.bampop.com, to see what’s new. Ask your local store to order for you if they don’t already stock what you want. BamPop! retires products on a regular basis, so if you see something you like, don’t assume it will be there in the coming months or years. Once a paper collection sells out, it’s never reprinted. 

The next to the last panel of this story, if it were a comic book, would be a picture of JJ and Jen leaning over one of his drawings, the kids jumping around close by, giving their opinions. In the final panel, a pizza would be on the kitchen counter, Jen’s mother has joined them for dinner, and the talk bubble above Jen’s head would read, “Who wants to pack boxes after we eat?”