By Elizabeth Prata
I have always loved paper. I’m a writer, to comes with the territory! Especially since I spent half my life expressing myself on paper before computer screens were invented. When I was in Italy, I purposely made a trip to the town of Fabriano. That place is one of the earliest and most important places in the West that sparked the trade in paper. The tradesmen there in the 1200s invented vats with multiple hammers, shortening the pounding time necessary to grind fiber to a malleable state. They also invented the watermark.
With a love of paper naturally comes a love of journals. I recently discovered the paper-journal-site Archer & Olive. This is an upscale, super-beautifully designed journal site. Their mission statement says,
At Archer & Olive, we believe creativity and planning should feel inspiring not overwhelming. That’s why we create premium journaling tools designed to support your mental wellness and help you stay organized in a way that feels joyful.
Premium is right. They make stunningly beautiful designs for their journals, notebooks, washi tape, and so on. An especially exciting product is their Subscription box. Inside are a myriad of freshly designed items sent to the subscriber. Each box bundle, and each season’s release of new individual collections, is freshly and uniquely designed by the talent behind the scenes.
For subscribers, the anticipation quickens as the date nears for the quarterly subscription box’s contents to be previewed and then released to the subscribers. They sell out quickly, I understand, and no wonder. They are beautiful as well as practical for the journaler or crafter who likes to create art in such notebooks.
Last week, on September 1, the Subscriber box was released to current subscribers, and a few days later, the opportunity for new quarterly subscribers to buy one was opened on their site.
I enjoyed seeing the glimpses and previews of the new designs, as well as viewing old “unboxings” on Youtube. These designers really know their craft.
Yesterday I read a statement from Archer & Olive that saddened me. Now, the state of social media is known to one and all. You can carve out a quiet corner for yourself by making intentional follows and relentless blocking… but still, the negativity, trolling, and downright hate will be present even when you make innocuous statements or put out a benign vibe. And so it was with A&O. They wrote:
In the past week, we have been getting an unprecedented number of comments questioning our design process. We will be honest, we were taken by surprise by the sudden influx. Our team have a longstanding history of gorgeous designs, long before generative Al developed to where it is now, and we naively believed those years of designs spoke for themselves. However, as more new people find us, we understand that we haven’t built your trust yet, so here’s what we’re doing going forward.
MAKING OUR STANCE CLEAR
Our team quickly put together this page to clearly state our stance against Al-art, as well as including some insights on our design process we have shared before:
NO AI-ART POLICY- https://www.archerandolive.com/pages/no-ai-policy
This page is not comprehensive, but we wanted to respond quickly to show we are actively engaged in the discussion, and working on ways to make our stance clear.
WHAT WE WILL BE DOING GOING FORWARD?
We have plans to continue to share more behind the scenes, and we are talking to our artists about sharing more of their process. However, we hope that everyone can understand that we will first and foremost be prioritizing the privacy and mental health of our staff. All our artists are in-house employees, and after being met with hostility when personally engaging with comments, many have become hesitant to have a public presence.
We do genuinely understand the vigilance when looking for Al, but our designs are created by real humans; real people who are seeing the unfounded comments and increased negativity towards their work. If you see an error, there was a real person behind that error. Our team are amazing, many who have been with us from the early days of Archer and Olive, and some newer faces who have allowed us to expand our designs and style over the years. We only hope going forward their work can be met with the praise it deserves.
How bad does society need to be that floods an innocent design site with trolls spewing hate! So sad. Here they are, making beautiful things, selling them, enjoying their own products, wanting to help people through journaling, and along come a flood of negative nellies who are skeptical that real, live designers have toiled hard to bring these pretty items to the public. Real, live designers whose work is not only not acknowledged positively, but denied at all!
How unkind.
You know that photo of all the men saluting Hitler in the Nazi salute and one guy rebelliously has his arms crossed?
In these days of unkindness, we can be that guy. Being kind in an unkind world will stand out. It will be a balm, a breath of fresh air, a sweet zephyr of repose for those around you.
To fellow Christians, Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32).
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. (Colossians 3:12).
Kindness is a spiritual fruit. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness (Galatians 5:22).
As in like manner, kindness will also stand out in a darkening world in our attitudes and behavior toward non-Christians, too.
So then, while we have opportunity, let’s do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith. (Galatians 6:10).
Even to those who are enemies! We should be kind. Luke 6:35 says, But love your enemies and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil people.
It profits no one anything to be unkind. I know I have failed myself in this regard many times. I begin each day with an appeal to the Holy Spirit to help me be kind to one and all. Fading energy, irritation, illness, are some reasons why I fail to restrain the unkindness and it comes out. But to purposely troll a business with floods of unkind negativity is beyond appropriate.
Stand out by being kind, even in the face of unkindness. Paul quoted Proverbs 25:21–22 in Romans 12:20 (ESV), To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” As GotQuestions explains,
Verse 21 explains the idea of heaping burning coals on someone by saying, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Anyone can return evil for evil. But when a Christian does so, the watching world sees nothing different about our lives. It is not even clear who is right and who is wrong when we respond in kind to the one who wronged us. But, when we follow Jesus’ instruction to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43–44) and return good for evil, the contrast is stark. Our kind and gentle reaction to hatred spotlights the depravity of the one who treated us poorly and leaves the hurtful person alone in his or her hatefulness. Nothing pricks the conscience of a hateful person like a soft, forgiving spirit in the one he has wronged (Proverbs 15:1).
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