A Personal Message from Sam Potts
As founder and regional manager of Sam Potts Inc., I am often called upon to tell the story of how the company came about and where the name comes from. This, then, is that story.
I studied comparative literature at Columbia University and graduated with some intention of going to grad school and becoming a literary critic, which in the early 90s was kind of a cool thing to want to be. As soon as I was out of school, I realized that I did not actually want to go to grad school at all and that the only people who think literary critics are cool are undergrads. (It was the early 90s.)
My first job post-college was as an editorial assistant in the college division of St. Martin's Press, where I worked up to editing a few English textbooks, and where for a time I had my own office in the Flatiron Building. I once went to a 3-hour movie at lunchtime and no one noticed.
In the spring of 1995 I was laid off from St. Martin's, which was not so much a blessing in disguise as a blessing with sirens and giant neon signs screaming You're free! all over it. I spent my 25th birthday in the Department of Labor, filing for Unemployment.
Not qualified for much, I began to work as a freelance proofreader and quickly learned to work long hours at home by myself. Over the years, it's proven invaluable to have a solid grasp of the Chicago Manual, which will tell you how to hyphenate a word like 'project' depending on whether it's a noun or a verb.
Around late 1995, I was lucky enough to get hired by Amy Hill to be her assistant in the design department of Simon & Schuster. My only qualifications were some zines I had made, a pretty good photocopying technique, and my grasp of the Chicago Manual. After a while, Amy gave me a book to design and I read all of Anthony Lawson's Anatomy of Type before I chose a typeface for the text. (Bembo, with Centaur Italic for display.)
After a couple years I got restless to do other kinds of design and on the recommendation of Eric Baker, I went to Portfolio Center in Atlanta. The P.C. brochure says you'll work harder there than you ever have and it sounds bogus, but I really did work harder there than I ever had. I have three receipts from a single day of trips to Home Depot — one from 2:00 p.m., one from 10:00 p.m., and one from 3:00 a.m. I passed up a chance to visit a friend in the Peace Corps in Africa — Africa! — so that I wouldn't fall behind. It now actually seems crazy but at the time I really loved it.
After P.C., Eric Baker hired me to work in his studio in New York, which made for a nice story because I had been unqualified to work for him before Portfolio Center. I worked there for about two years, was involved in some exciting foodie projects, and listened to “Mob Hits” a lot.
In June 2002, after a refreshing drive across the United States and a perfect afternoon of baseball at Wrigley Field, I began working for myself. “Sam Potts Inc.” was the obvious name to give the endeavor because even my oldest friends call me Sam Potts most of the time, and because you get an embosser in your kit when you incorporate online.
E. B. White says now-famously in Here Is New York that no one should come to New York if they are not willing to be lucky. I'm grateful for having had more than my fair share of luck but I cannot claim to have been at all prepared for it.
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