Fusion :: Watercolor and Letterpress Wedding Invites

My client asked me for an illustration of roses on her wedding invitation with more nuance than I felt letterpress was able to do. We decided watercolor was the best direction to take. I discovered letterpress even more wonderful when fused together with watercolor.

I set out to find the right materials from watercolor to paper. The first question I had to tackle was whether to use watercolor or gouache. The color red had to stand out on the invitations, and at first gouache was the obvious choice, but later watercolor had the advantage of layering color and having a more luminous quality.

WATERCOLOR ILLUSTRATION
SAMPLES ON ARCHES PAPER

Young Wild & Three: Toddlers birthday party

                                           
Summer quickly turned into fall and suddenly a lot of party planning begins. Among the obvious, there was Maya’s third birthday to plan for too. I decided to do my own take on “Young Wild & Three”. I just love that fierce little slogan and couldn’t resist.

Dig It :: Kids Play and Printing

When you add meaning, be sure to equip with water for making mud pies and washing up. Spring is on and I have been working on designing a play space for the family. While doing so, I’ve made some parallels between it and printing in the studio.

STATIONERY ELEMENTS

Creating Value :: Paper

Paper choice. It's an important part of what pushes your work towards sophistication and something your client can value. Some of the considerations when choosing paper are its weight, color and texture, or/and taking it a step further by understanding the paper manufacturer's history and culture.

Italian Paper Choices to Devour

Paper choice - we’ve heard of and absolutely love Neenah, French and Mohawk and not to mention their amazing creative marketing teams behind their collateral products, but Italian paper is pretty fine too. Even if it can lack in assertiveness or edgy on-line appeal, they make up for in innovation and bare bones history and culture.
Italian paper innovation, print techniques and graphic design is a feast, buon appetito!

FABRIANO’S TAKE ON
LA CUCINA ITALIANA - REPRINT OF THEIR FIRST ED.
VIA FABRIANO BOUTIQUE

Letterpress Insert Covers :: Traveler Notebooks

NOTEBOOK INSERTS FOR TRAVELER NOTEBOOKS
LETTERPRESS COVER

I’ve been delving and developing notebook inserts. It all started with a bullet journal article I read. Like many of us we have a note book or ten floating around us at any given moment. They are promisers of taking a load off our brains, getting things better organized and the added bonus of sitting pretty on a table, but after a few pages filled they can be like an old toy left alone.

Kismet, Fabrica Notebooks

THE BIG AND SMALL NOTEBOOK BY FABRICA
PHOTOS VIA CATARINA CARREIRAS WEBSITE

The other day I eyed some notebooks from across the counter at Benetton. The sales girl asked which one I wanted hurriedly but politely, after all the store was full. I asked for the black and white one with the simple motif, so she handed it over.  That style only came in the smaller format, The Small Notebook it was literally called. My second choice was a colorful lime green chevron motif in a larger A5 format, The Big Notebook. The sales person took it for me to further inspect; it had a lovely hot pink elastic enclosure and an emerald green book mark. There were plenty of others to admire, but my husband gave me a sign that the customers behind me were becoming disgruntled and I should move it along.  I couldn’t help but bring The Big Notebook home and I was happy at the chance to start a new bullet journal as my explorations deepen. 

Letterpress Planner and Methods

Paper, thinking and writing come hand in hand in planners, notebooks, calendars, journals...  I wrote in an earlier post of the newest wave, the bullet journal, bringing note taking all together. It’s a creative and tidy method to put all your projects, to do lists, sketches, calendar of events into one place rather than having sheets of paper, numerous notebooks or even bookmarked links all over the place. What’s is more, you have more control over what goes into it.

i.e. ABOVE ALL, ME
CUSTOMIZED LETTERPRESS COVER - PLANNER