Big demand for products made in S.F.
Eleven years ago, Kimberly Austin bought a 500-pound free-standing press and a rainbow of colored inks. She had dreams of starting a letter press company — but not much of a plan.
Since then, her business, Austin Print, has taken off. The big break came when Anthropologie, a popular clothing and home-goods store, bought a batch of monogrammed stationary. Now Austin, 50, toils in a sunny studio on Pier 70, inking archival images onto stationary, flashcards, gift tags and word cards. At the 38Makers Holiday Gift Fair, sponsored by SFMade and Pinterest Saturday, hordes of shoppers clustered around her table.
“It was tough and scary the first couple of years,” she said, pausing to straighten a stack of cards. “It’s been a byyour-bootstraps kind of business. But there has been a resurgence of local small businesses, and we all support each other. It’s good to know you have friends on this level when there are so many big companies out there.”
SFMade, a San Francisco nonprofit that supports the manufacturing sector in the city, marked its fifth anniversary in August. The organization has made strides to create a cohesive community for artisans whose products are in high demand as the economy booms. Of the 565 manufacturing companies in the city, more than half were founded within the past five years. The businesses drove $585 million into the local economy, an increase of 32 percent from 2013, according to the SFMade’s annual report.
Tech firms supportive
But the organization’s mission has come with challenges, namely the affordability and availability of manufacturing space in San Francisco and the high cost of living. Support to keep the sector thriving has come from an unlikely place — the Bay Area’s technology companies.
Social Imprints, a screen-printing company, regularly fills orders for T-shirts, coffee mugs, socks, posters and other promotional material for giants like Pinterest, Dropbox and Facebook, said founder Kevin McCracker, a 17-year veteran of the trade. The company had $10 million in revenue last year.
“As much as the tech industry gets a bad reputation, they spend a lot of money locally,” McCracker said. “If a company can keep their money in San Francisco, they can give back through things they would normally be buying anyway. That also helps fund local jobs.”
At Social Imprints, that means helping people who have struggled with addiction, served jail time or don’t have a degree a second-chance. About 90 percent of McCracker’s 20 employees have a spotty history. But working for the company, they receive technical training in the warehouse or office.
“We like to bring in the under-employed as part of our social mission,” he said. “People need jobs. It’s through the networking opportunities and exposure SFMade has given us that we have continued to be able to hire people who are often considered un-hireable.”
Supporting creativity
The emphasis is on makers in SFMade, said Eileen Walsh of Eileen Walsh Fine Furniture. She quit her job as an occupational therapist eight years ago to start a business creating furniture out of reclaimed wood. Her latest creation was carved from a fallen tulip poplar tree at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate.
“It’s about making good chocolate or purses or tables,” she said. “There’s an emphasis now on the locals making these products. People are trying to support creativity.”
Shoppers at Saturday’s SFMade event largely agreed. Linda Sackett, 60, an Upper Market Street resident, said she tries to buy products from local businesses instead of corporations.
“I just love it,” she said. “It’s so good to support your community. I want to know where my money is going and where the materials are from. Plus, the products are unique, nothing like you would find at a shopping mall.”