We are Gentle Giraffe Press, an educational publisher that develops books, websites and interactive teaching tools for children, parents and teachers.
Corkey Hay DeSimone our president has been creating children's products for 20 years. She began her first company Corkey's Kids in 1990 hand painting children's t-shirts and selling them at outdoor markets in Washington DC. She approached the Smithsonian and ask if they would be interested in hand painted shirts for National Museum of American Art. After one summer she hand painted over 2500 shirts for the Smithsonian and other stores. The buyers then asked her to start screen-printing to keep up with demand.
In 1992, Corkey and her future husband took off to Asia to travel and explore for 8 months. It was then that Corkey wrote the book The Planet Hue. They traveled to Indonesia and it's outer islands, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and had the unique experience of traveling to Vietnam prior to the embargo being lifted.
In 1994 Corkey and her husband took off again to Indonesia on their honeymoon for three months. They traveled across the island of Sulawesi. The government of Indonesia had just finished a one-lane road, which they named the Trans-Sulawesi Highway. Corkey and Scott rented a motorcycle for one month and road 2000 miles round trip from the southwest to the northeast tip. After the motorcycle trip they hiked for three days high up into the mountains of Sulawesi. There, they visited remote coffee plantations. There were no roads, so donkeys, mules and oxen carried all the supplies and coffee harvest in and out of the mountains.
This trip to South East Asia shaped their future. It was an incredible experience and it gave Corkey the time to illustrate her first book The Planet Hue. During their honeymoon Corkey made a connection in Bali, Indonesia, with a woman who managed small sewing groups, a total of 60 sewers. She began to manufacture children's batik printed clothes to match her made in the USA t-shirts.
As a small manufacturer she needed to remain competitive, but at same time always questioned the ethical stand of her actions. She decided to always try to keep a 50/50 split. Fifty percent made in the USA, fifty percent made in Bali. The men and women who sewed for her didn't work in factories, but in their home villages in sewing groups. This form of micro funding allowed the sewers to have a stake in their own work and their futures. Corkey was very proud of this wonderful set up and for the next ten years grew Corkey's Kids into an international company. She sold to stores and boutiques in United States and around the world. In those years Corkey's Kids sold over a million uniquely designed children's dresses, shorts and tops.
In 2003 Corkey decide that she wanted to pursue children's book publishing. She made the decision to sell half of her company to a larger manufacturer in Fall River, MA. She brought her focus back to her illustrations for her books and t-shirts. Corkey sold the portion of the company that created the all over printed material and children's clothing. She renamed the remaining fifty percent, Gentle Giraffe Press.
Gentle Giraffe Press has become a quite a success and has published 25 books, created countless educational products, websites, and teaching tools for museums, zoos, aquariums and organizations.