St. Louis Post-Dispatch Top Workplaces 2026: Live Event Activation
The Client: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The Event: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Top Workplaces Celebration
The Venue: The Post Building
The Item: Branded notebooks
The Method: Gold hot foil with names, initials, or business name
The Outcome: 130+ hot foiled notebooks in a 2.5 hour event
How It Started
St. Louis event planner Vivant Entertainment reached out with a referral that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch team was looking to hire a calligrapher to personalize notebooks for an upcoming event. After confirming availability, I was connected with the team to find out more about the event.
They were planning the 2026 Top Workplaces awards ceremony, a happy hour celebrating locally-nominated businesses for the best places to work. They were looking to set up an activation that would make sense with the short timeframe of their event (2 hours).
To prepare a quote and make sure the activation would make sense for their event, I asked the following clarifying questions, which are always helpful to have on hand when making an inquiry.
Where is the event located?
What is the timeframe of the event?
How many guests are expected?
What material is the notebook cover and do you have them in hand now?
These questions helped me prepare a quote, and we decided on lettering with gold or white ink. I sent over a quote, they accepted it, and after the contract and 25% retainer were secured, I had the date secured in my schedule.
Video by Guadalupe Medina
A material test full of (good!) surprises
As part of my live calligraphy and engraving services, I always offer a complimentary material test. Sometimes, this material test is done before booking, to make sure that the activation and personalization method makes sense. Often, it’s done after booking, to make sure that I have the right supplies ready for the event. Sometimes I’ll need to order different pens, or a different type of foil, and make sure I have the right settings set up on my heat or engraving tools to make the personalization successful.
For this event, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch team couriered over a few notebooks to my home studio. I tested out my lineup of pens on hand: gold oil pens, white oil pens, different brush pens, ink, etcetera. But then … I had a hunch.
My gold foiling services inquiries have been off the charts in the past few months (and for good reason!). I had a feeling that this material, though not leather (which is what I typically foil on), would work well for this method. I did a small sample on the back and it foiled b-e-a-u-tifully. I was SO excited to see this method work and couldn’t wait to tell my client.
Since I typically send material test photos within 24 hours of receiving the items, I knew my client was expecting an update on how the test went. I advised that we go with foil and sent her a photo with her name as the example personalization. She was happy to go with that method.
As a live event artist, I don’t change my rates based on the personalization method. So, for my client, the only thing that changed was needing access to a power source (which was an easy lift on their end). Adding a premium finish that matched the vibe of the event was so important and I was thrilled to be able to provide an “upgrade” without any additional cost to the client. In fact, it worked even better because foil has no dry time and we’d need as much speed as we could get with the short timeframe of the event.
The Big Day
I arrived to the Post Building in Downtown St. Louis ahead of the event. As part of my setup, I unboxed notebooks that were waiting at my station, plugged in my heat tool (just 30 seconds to heat up!), and made sure I had samples ready to go. This prep time is also when I typically take photos and videos of the event, like to share in this case study.
As guests trickled in, event staff sent them over to the calligraphy station. I started with a few guests, chatting and making up their notebooks. As soon as other guests saw what they were walking away with, the line grew … and grew … and grew.
I was flying through notebooks, averaging about 30 seconds per personalization. We had set the “menu” of options to first name, initials/monogram, or business name (for businesses being honored that night). It was so fun chatting with guests and watching them be amazed by how quickly their notebook was personalized.
All in, I completed about 130 notebooks in a 2.5 hour span. Guests were thrilled with the end result.