Design Your Recognition

Design Your Recognition: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"
About Design Your Recognition
Innovation is everywhere. It's not limited to Apple, Steve Jobs and businesses launched by twenty-somethings from dorm rooms. Sometimes it comes in well-established categories, like when a plastics salesperson named Howard Schultz had a vision for a coffeehouse that would change the way that Americans buy coffee forever. It also created a $20 billion dollar company in Starbucks.

Over the last 25 years, the founders of Design Your Recognition have repeatedly identified well-established industries and product categories ready for change and built successful businesses around them.

In 1999, they founded PaperDirect, Inc. by injecting their brand of innovation into the paper business.

By leveraging the growth of home laser printers and strategic alliances with HP, Apple and Microsoft, the amassed over 1 million customers and built a $100 million specialty paper business.

The big idea for their next business came from a small place.

Seeking inspiration for a gourmet popcorn business, they traveled to Popcorn, Indiana, a tiny farming community near Bloomington.

Invigorated by the image of a pure and simple town dedicated to corn, they founded Dale & Thomas and Popcorn, Indiana in 2004.

By reinventing the stale, ready-to-eat popcorn category, Popcorn, Indiana quickly became the first national, premium kettle-cooked popcorn brand.

Today, Dale & Thomas and Popcorn, Indiana products are sold in over 150,000 retail locations today.

Design Your Recognition is a great illustration that need is often the mother of invention. While putting together an annual charity basketball tournament, one of Design Your Recognition's founders spent the better part of a week procuring personalized awards for the winning teams. Design Your Recognition was inspired by his frustrating experience. Then that same year, the founder asked his assistant to purchase ten plaques for the annual company dinner. To say the least, the assistant wasted a lot of time going back and forth with the company's promotional product company.

Today, though a significant investment in people, technology, creativity and state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, Design Your Recognition is changing the way the recognition products are merchandised, created and sold.

Once limited to the province of the local awards shop, buying recognition products could be a challenging.

Not only does Design Your Recognition make it super easy, it makes products that are both meaningful and relevant, making them more appreciated by the person being recognized. The founders often refer to the products produced by Design Your Recognition as "Recognition Art".
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