Back when Hello!Lucky used to be in Berkeley (and even before that, when we were based in Eunice's Oakland garage), we used to love visiting Maison D'Etre, the delightful home goods boutique on College Avenue in Rockridge. Today, we still make a point to visit whenever we're in the East Bay -- the shop always has a refreshingly eclectic assortment of both new and vintage home decor and gifts, like this whimsical Birdhouse mobile by LA-based Ige Design. We absolutely love Maison D'Etre!
Bittersweet Chocolate Cafe
With locations in San Francisco and Rockridge, Bittersweet Chocolate Cafe is a not-to-be-missed destination for Bay Area chocolate lovers. Their hot chocolate is to-die-for, and we just love browsing all the fabulously-designed packaging of the gourmet chocolate bars they carry. Definitely worth a visit, particularly if your honey has a sweet tooth on Valentine's Day!
Valentine's Day Cards
Valentine's Day is one of our favorite holidays, in part because is it's the perfect time to shamelessly showcase our quirky humor! We are most inspired by vintage valentines, with their pun-tastic punchlines - check out our latest styles here. Also shown above are some of our favorite designs, such as Lionheart, from over the years.
We also love seeing what our fellow designers have come up for this fantastic occasion. Behold, two of our favorite recent finds: Love Bunny note cards by Etsy seller Ashleybug, and witty letterpress cards by Viola at Chewing the Cud. Happy Valentine's!
Photos of Hello!Lucky letterpress greeting cards courtesy of Sara Remington.
Julia Rothman for Hello!Lucky Letterpress Cards
We've been watching Julia Rothman's work for some time now and were thrilled to finally meet her last year at the National Stationery Show. We love the hip, urban quality to her illustrations and the slightly naive linework - it all comes together in illustrations that are slightly retro and totally inspiring.
So, we were thrilled when Julia agreed to lend her illustrations to our new, exclusive line of letterpress greeting cards. We commissioned the illustrations shown above and then collaborated with Julia on the graphic design. We letterpress printed the cards on 30% post-consumer waster recycled paper in our San Francisco studio (the photographs don't due justice to the fine, indented lines created by the printing process!). One of our favorites has got to be the Silverware thank you card - perfect for dinner parties. Coming soon: matching gift wrap!
The cards were just featured on Design*Sponge (thanks, Grace!), which has also featured Julia's fantastic work for Urban Outfitters and Freddy & Ma, among others. See more of Julia's wonderful illustration work here.
Today's Top Stationery Artists
We were thrilled when fellow stationery artist Tori Higa invited us to contribute to her new book, Today's Top Stationery Artists (Schiffer Publishing, January 2008). The book is packed with photographs of work by some of today's leading artists in independent publishers, including some of our favorite designers: Pancake & Franks and Egg Press. The book is available here.
Functional Art: Letterpress Stationery
Why do we love letterpress stationery so? Obviously, we’re a little biased – but it didn’t start out that way.
We first fell in love with letterpress as an artistic medium – it creates gorgeously tactile prints and beautiful, saturated colors. We also loved the authentic, vintage quality of it – it used to be the primary commercial printing technique back when commercial printing was still a small-scale craft and involved hand-setting individual letters of type, backwards. It reminded us of days gone by, an of the old nature books we used rummage through our grandmother’s attic. Today, it’s still a highly respected artistic medium, with studios like Arion Press in San Francisco producing sought-after limited-edition letterpress-printed books that are created in collaboration with fine artists from around the world.
Eunice and I love functional art, so the next step in our love affair was to figure out how to make the medium accessible. Greeting cards and custom stationery immediately came to mind as personal, creative, accessible, and affordable formats that many people could enjoy and share. Wedding invitations, in particular, mark an incredibly meaningful event and the first step in creating a new life, home, and family – if fine art is to have a place anywhere in people’s lives, it should be on such an occasion.
So, we started doodling and printing on a hand-cranked Vandercook printing press in Eunice’s garage, and the rest is history! Today, we continue to remain focused on letterpress as a fine art – our printers have advanced degrees in fine art, and have apprenticed with master printers for years. Our goal is to create beautiful products that have an heirloom-quality and that make art and craft a central part of our everyday lives.
Photographs courtesy of Sara Remington.
Top Drawer Spring
Of all the trade shows we do throughout the year, London's Top Drawer is one of our favorites. There is so much fabulous, fresh design happening in the UK and Europe and this January's exhibition, which wrapped today, was another case in point.
This year, we were debuting our brand new line of letterpress greeting cards and gift wrap featuring illustrations by the amazing Julia Rothman, along with our own vintage-inspired designs. As always, our cards were well-received by our loyal fan-base of UK retailers, among them Magma Books, Castor & Pollux, Live Like This, and Liberty. Between visits, we managed to catch up with a few favorite designers, who never cease to inspire:
Petra Boase exhibited a range of fabulous new mugs featuring her colorful cut-paper and collage-inspired images. Petra is practically a household name in the UK (her cards can be found at Designer's Guild and many independent boutiques) and we hear that her cards are now available in the U.S. at Papyrus and Paper Source stores. It's about time! Petra also has a wonderful range of children's wear, tea towels, framed prints, and even lamp shades, all available at her adorable online shop.
We caught up with Fiona at Wu & Wu - since she started exhibiting at Top Drawer, we've been in awe of her note-perfect Chinese kitsch designs for everything from mugs and totes to wallets and this genius shoe-shine kit. We finally made the connection that she is the illustrator and designer behind the brilliant packaging for Blue Q's Miso Pretty line of cosmetics, which we've coveted for ages! It all makes sense now. Buy their fabulous products here.
We also discovered the wonderful French illustrator Miriam Derville, whose studio, Mimi'lou, produces amazing wall decals for children's rooms (we want to use them to decorate, period!). Check them out here.
And, of course, there was the always-inspiring Marimekko, debuting their Spring 2008 collection. We especially love these trees by Kristina Isola and these gorgeous pods by Erja Hirvi.