Toppers by Tarta

About Tarta

Just who is Tarta?

Well I received that name from my niece when she was very small. She just couldn’t quite say Aunt Marta and blurted out TARTA in the grocery store. We all laughed and everyone around us smiled and at first it became a cute joke but then it stuck and business associates and clients started calling me the endearing name - Tarta. So when I started my company it seemed like a good idea to call it Tarta Marketing.

I am creative, was an art major in college and then went on to get my MBA. I have always loved paper pop-ups. Every birthday card I gave to family members had to be a pop-up. I have always been a creative conceptual thinker. And then I was fortunate enough to work with pop-ups for more than 10 years while working for a leading pop-up company. As VP of Sales I helped create Pop-up advertising and promotional mailings for Fortune 100 clients like McDonald’s, Target, Kraft, Kellogg’s, Chrysler and Kellogg’s. I am very familiar with large quantity production of millions of pieces and I have worked with production in factories in the US, Mexico and China.

I know retail environment from family business and retail sales jobs throughout my college years so evolving to a retail product made sense to me.

So where did Toppers originate?

I was dining with a good friend and we always brainstormed about products. It was during one of those evenings that I had idea of creating pop-up decorations for packages, - any kind of packages – Gift boxes, gift bags, cartons. A way to dress them up with more than a ribbon. We used to laugh about my list of ideas and maybe I should pursue them. So I spent time researching patents and trademarks and finally decided to take the plunge and hired a great patent attorney and proceeded from there. The idea has much iteration and will continue to grow. I have a US patent and have foreign patents pending. That’s just on my first idea. There are more to come.

Over the years I have met many paper engineers and great graphic designers. For the first design I worked with a paper engineer I had known, David Rosendale and a young artist in Chicago named J. Byrnes of Adapt-studio.com. But most of the 18+ current designs were designed with Rodger Smith, the acclaimed pop-up book designer. He is so talented and such a delight. He is also an illustrator and will use some of his ideas for future designs.

The graphics have been worked on with Brooke Nuñez of lifeinvector.com. It really is a wonderful team effort. It’s my vision and we all work together to bring each design to market. I even involved my sister-in-law, Heather – she came up with the Monkeys design and Brooke helped execute the art. The Monkeys are so cute and fun swinging over the alligator that we had to create it in the Large and Mini format. It is really fun to hear what people like and would like to see. I never know where I will get my next idea, just like greeting cards, the ideas are infinite.

I just feel so lucky to finally bring my creative conceptual designs skills together and to bring it to market where it makes people happy and celebratory.

New ideas are just around the corner.