To Thine Own Self Be True

Years ago, I did an interview about designing your own stationery system. “You don’t need to demonstrate everything you can do at once,” I said, “I believe this is the place for restraint.” Clearly, I ignored my own advice. I now have a stationery system that does everything but take you out for dinner, and then to bed. But, c’est la vie. Life’s too short to waste it on restraint.

Liz Farrelly recently released a new book, Designers’ Identities. When Liz originally asked me to contribute to the book, I expected to have my package returned with a big “NO” written across it. We don’t have a cool name that would work for a band. We don’t use lots of tiny type in a swirl. I was pleasantly surprised to find the book rich with pretty darned good work. There are some amazingly beautiful solutions and very few that are trying too hard (like ours).

I have fallen in love with Richard Ardagh’s Elephant Graveyard.co.uk. This is one I wish I’d done. Christopher Simmons has the most incredible envelope ever. Stefan Bucher has sparkly stickers that I need badly. There is an entire page of the amazing Rick Valicenti’s promotions. Rinzen in Melbourne has an array of stickers everyone should use. To top this off, the book, as expected from Liz, is well written and curated, and beautifully printed.

And just to prove we’re not all happy and candy, we just redesigned our stationery—in black. See, we’re serious too.