Essentials/Blog

Visit ShopEssentials.net to see all the NEW Barbapapa and Babar product. Soooo cute!

Seen in a traffic jam on the way to New York. Do you think there is a GOOCH #2?

Essentials Job Opportunities

Video/Animation/ Graphic Design Internships

Essentials, a boutique retailer with two stores in Western Mass and three online e-commerce sites, and a growing distribution/wholesale business specializing in cutting edge American and Japanese designs, is seeking a video/animation intern and a graphic design intern. Our office is located in downtown Northampton. The internship starts immediately!

The video/animation intern will produce short pieces in a fun, lighthearted style for Essentials’ culture, brand, products, and events. The graphic design intern will select appropriate designs for all Essentials product platforms, design marketing collateral for Essentials’ products.

Essentials works closely with their interns making them a valuable part of the team. Interns will work on real projects and gain important hands-on experience. No coffee making or running errands! This is a fantastic opportunity for interns to build their portfolios and resumes with projects from Essentials.

Video/animation candidates should meet the following minimum qualifications:

Knowledge of After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Flash, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Additionally, one must have a strong grasp of color theory, composition, typography and overall design concepts. Competence in web design, with fluency in HTML, CSS, and Word Press is a huge plus. Access to digital video camera is preferred but not required.  Access to a laptop preferred.

An informed interest in design and fun, is a must!

Graphic design candidates should meet the following minimum qualifications:

1. Acute command of color theory, composition, typography and overall design concepts
2. Strength in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and other creative application software
3. Must be competent in both web and print design, with fluency in HTML and CSS - experience with WordPress a big plus.
4. Skilled photography and illustration ability is a big plus.

Application Process

Please e-mail a cover letter, resume and your online portfolio to john [at] ShopEssentials [dot] net. In the cover letter tell us your favorite blogs and director/animator. Please write Video/Animation or Graphic Design Internship in the subject heading of the email

Marketing/Business Development Internships

Essentials, a boutique retailer with two stores in Western Mass and three online e-commerce sites, and a growing distribution/wholesale business specializing in cutting edge American and Japanese designs, is seeking a video/animation intern and a graphic design intern. Our office is located in downtown Northampton. The internship starts immediately!

Essentials works closely with their interns making them a valuable part of the team. Interns will work on real projects and gain important hands-on experience. No coffee making or running errands! This is a fantastic opportunity for interns to build their experiences from the ground level with Essentials.

Marketing/ Business Development Internship candidates should meet the following minimum qualifications:

1. Must be an out-of-box thinker with crazy good ideas.
2. Must have a can-do attitude to get the ideas executed in a organized and efficient manner.
3. A degree in business, marketing, or related fields and experiences preferred.
4. Access to a laptop preferred.
5. An informed interest in fashion, product design, and independent businesses is a must!

Application Process

Please e-mail a cover letter, resume to john [at] ShopEssentials [dot] net. In the cover letter tell us your favorite websites, online businesses, and blogs and why you would like to work at Essentials. Please write Marketing/Business Development Internship in the subject heading of the email.

File under: “one more reason to live in the Valley”

The family went to Holyoke this evening to see Wire Monkey Dance. It was basically a dress rehearsal for the big event tomorrow night at Jacob’s Pillow in the Berkshires. But whether it was a rehearsal or not, they rocked! Amazing physicality, interesting narratives, and lovely moves. If you get a chance, go see them the next time they perform.

We love critters. We can go completely overboard with cards featuring animals wearing outfits and saying funny things. We waste too much time on cute overload. It makes sense that we couldn’t resist these guys, who fill the store with squirrely love. Cuddly, even in hardwood, these two are beloved by everyone in the store. Perfect gift for your true love, whatever the occasion. (Available in the Northampton store.)

We also love us some textiles, and think tea towels double as the perfect hostess gift, and way to jazz up your own kitchen. We’re completely enamored of our new ones from Ferm-Living, a Scandinavian company that showcases great modern design and doesn’t leave us cold the way some others can. Plus, these tea towels are 100% organic cotton. You can see the entire collection in Northampton, at the Amherst store, or on our website. (And if you love their tea towels, look out for their amazing wall decals—the world map is a favorite.)

The town of Amherst has been getting a bad rap lately. Between on-going construction and some store closures, people are wondering what the deal is with this town. Here is some good news…our Amherst store ROCKS! We continue to get tons of new product and things that you can’t get in Northampton (or NYC for that matter). Yes, this store is smaller, but it still has that Essentials quality our customers have come to love.

We put these up at ShopEssentials.net and sold through an entire batch of the black-and-white tea towels within the first hour. Sheesh! We still have a bunch in stock, but that won’t last for long the way our customers are responding. Check them out here. Buy them online or at the Northampton AND Amherst stores.

We are having an online sale on Morgan and Milo Children’s Shoes. Save 25% off regularly priced shoes through the remainder of August. This is an online sale, so if you are a local customer, you can buy on-line and pick up at the Amherst store. Here are the details:

We were poking around online and just stumbled across these FREE downloads of Robert le Heros textile images. A couple are new designs, and a couple represent the classic RLH look. Dowload them for free below (they are saved at 1024 x 768), or at ShopEssentials.net, or at the RLH website.

My wife and son went to NYC this weekend and I got left behind with some sort of bug. Poor me. But my wife, because she is freakin’ awesome, bought me this ULTRAMAN as a get well/we-missed-you gift. For the record, I am not some sort of crazed anime/Japanese B-Movie fan. However, I have the most amazing memories of dragging a friend to go see the US release of ULTRAMAN when I must have been 8 or 9. To this day, I can still smell the musty theater that showed it, and the reaction of my friend’s mom to the movie (read: horrified), and how excited I was when I saw ULTRAMAN defeat the evil monsters and witch and save Japan/The World from destruction. The fact that this was San Antonio in the lateish 1970’s makes it even more surreal because movies like this simply DID NOT go there. Now here I sit, at my desk in Western MASS, looking at one of the heros of my youth. Now, I am off to find a copy of that film so I can brainwash my 8-year old… Thanks, honey!