Quite a few years ago, I was working with a client: a kind woman with a small business, five children, and a wackypants calendar. We were talking about her kids and a promotion idea she liked for her hotels (I’d pitched her a storytelling approach to illustrate the magic of their location), and she said:
“I don’t have enough time in the day. I wish I could just give someone my pictures and have them hand me back something beautiful.”
That stuck with me. I wanted to jump right on it, but… well. As she said, there are only so many hours in the day.
Fast forward to our recent move. I was unpacking some of the boxes that had been sitting in the garage for years (no, I am not proud of that), and at the bottom of one of them, I found a memory book I’d started back when we lived in Illinois.
I was playing with layout and design. Just photos, some little stories, a bit of context. And I was struck by how much it made me feel.
Not because the photos were amazing (they weren’t). Not because the stories were deep or perfectly written (they weren’t). Not even because the moments were especially meaningful (they really weren’t).
But something about the story paired with the photos made it real. It captured the moment better than either could alone.
It felt like something worth saving. It felt like something I could hand to someone else and they’d say, “OMG I remember that!”
That’s where Paper Trail began to take root. It’s still taking shape. But at its heart is something simple:
People want help telling their stories.
And I like helping.
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