Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Stationery Show Friends

I wanted to put up more on some of the great designers, printers, and shop owners we met at the Stationery Show. One of the highlights were the very warm and friendly people at Night Owl Paper Goods, whose cosy booth featured a set of exquisitely thin wooden notecards. The colors were all warm and had a great 70s feel.

One of the new stores that will be featuring our Lettre Sauvage wedding book is Convier Design, a boutique shop located in Redmond, Washington - our first northwest location! They were very friendly and knowledgeable, and we were so pleased that they were willing to share so much of their expertise with us. We trust we're in very good hands with them. 

We were also visited by Maginating, a new letterpress company close to home in Los Angeles. They had great bold patterns and colors, and we were especially impressed by their lovely blue burlap booth. 


The owner of Pretty Bitter had a wonderful story about receiving his booth space as a Christmas gift and coming up with a stationery company in time for the show. The result was an energetic and witty line of greeting cards. We especially like the awkwardly verbose "Sentimental Journeys" which playfully demonstrate how attempting to say it all never really gets the job done.


Finally we were thrilled to be visited by Urban Mercantile, a home accessories store that we'll definitely be visiting (and shopping at) the next time we're in San Francisco. We were excited to have a positive response from the owner, but moreover it was great to get constructive feedback based on shoppers' tastes and other letterpress offerings out there. Look out for our stationery and new matchbook sets at the store!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Stationery Show Part 2

We had a really successful time at the National Stationery Show, placing our wedding books and stationery in a number of stores around the country and meeting a lot of really great and interesting people. The giant matchbook noteset, which has perforated cards that tear out, was a big hit, and the little matchbooks that we gave away always made people smile. 


The stationery show was massive. Besides just stationery, there were pens with flowers on top, wrapping paper, ribbons, photo albums, Japanese decorative paper, and trinkets of all kinds. There were the big companies with massive booths, like Crane's and American Greetings, and then a lot of smaller companies like us. One of our neighbors, and some of the nicest people at the show, was Bald Guy Greetings, and their bright and quirky illustrations won them a Louie award. We hope they publish a children's book sometime soon.

Being surrounded by so much great work at the show, we were inspired to design an upcoming broadside and a few new wedding invitations during our spare time. All in all, we had a wonderful time and will definitely be back next year.



Monday, May 19, 2008

Lettre Sauvage at the National Stationery Show

Our first National Stationery Show experience has been great so far --we've brought with us new stationery lines, wedding invitation sample books, a handful of our literary editions, and a highly regarded matchbook noteset (more on that soon). Though it's a big trade show with thousands of people milling about, people who love paper tend to very friendly and open. We've learned quite a lot from kind buyers, wedding and event planners, store owners, creative directors, and other printers/designers like us. 


If you're in New York and plan on attending the show, we invite you to visit us at our booth #3346! 

More details and pictures soon.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

GIANTS

Giants of the 1950s is our first completed book collaboratively printed for local poet and photographer, Carol DeCanio. The edition of 40 was printed by Fiona and designed by Carol and Fiona with the artistic input of Cameron who created a striking half-tone from Carol's photo of a 1930s car.
The accordion is 38 inches long and slides into a dust jacket. It is a sweet poem recounting memories of San Francisco transformed while the Giants were in the world series. It's available for $30 signed by the author. Email sales@lettresauvage.com for details.
Collaboration worked well for the three of us, leading to an unexpected design. We met several times and tried to "mock-up" the project on the laptop and looked at tiny paper sample squares, so it was really a thrill the first time Carol saw the final product. We knew we wanted to work with her when she came by and ordered stationery that said "I am an upright crumble." We were right.