My original Parrot Graphics logo

For years I worked under the name Parrot Graphics. I started my company in the 1980s when a cheeky computer company took the name Apple. I figured I could use a whimsical name, too.

I built that business with literal cold calls…you know, picking up the phone (the kind attached to the wall with a cord) and asking to be connected to the production and design manager at publisher X. I’d give a quick elevator pitch (“I’m a cartographer who’s worked for the Minnesota Geological Survey and National Geographic”) and then ask if they’d like me to send a printed sample sheet. I’d put it in the mail and follow up a week or two later with another phone call. My portfolio wasn’t huge but the work was good. Textbook publishers were my best customers.

Eventually I landed big clients like Houghton Mifflin in Boston and McGraw-Hill in New York and San Francisco, but also midsize and small publishers throughout the country. Business hummed along until the late 1990s-early 2000s, when a wave of mergers consolidated my once-diverse stable of 40 or 50 clients into three or four behemoths who eliminated production stateside in favor of outsourcing to India.

The name Parrot Graphics hasn’t been great for Google searches; people think I make pictures of birds. It’s time for a reboot. I rebranded as 45th Parallel Maps and Infographics a few years ago—the name is a  geographic reference to the latitude where I live—but it’s a little clunky and hasn’t really taken off. For now I’m just using my name, Patti Isaacs, and the taglines “Art from data” and “I make GIS beautiful” which pretty well sum up my talents.

As Parrot Graphics, I maintained a blog full of map design ideas, and in the coming weeks I’ll be posting much of that content here.