3 months in 5 minutes

Hey there!
LONG time, no chat. We apologize. We really do. We've been up to our ears in paper and we haven't had much time to breathe since the holidays. Yes, for a good 3 months we have been busy, busy bees - Fab.com sales, weddings, graduation announcements, wholesale orders, creating new designs, getting ready for the National Stationery Show.... If it has anything to do with paper, we've been workin' on it and we are sorry for our lack of blogging to keep you in the loop.  So we've finally designed this little post to take you on a journey through the past few months here, at Farewell. Strap in because 3 months is going to fly by in about 5 minutes.

1. Happy Holidays! 

2. Happy New Year!

3. A little lull in the biz after holiday mayhem. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

4. Design Sponge - Hooray! PR! At the end of January our Besties card was featured on Design Sponge. The response we received was cah-razy. (The power of the interwebs and social media still boggle our minds.) We had orders coming in from Japan, Australia and Puerto Rico. We were even published in an Irish teen magazine, thanks to that card.

5. Lisa visits San Fran for a month - Just as that was wrapping up, I flew to San Francisco to spend a month with Jen working side by side on all aspects of the business. It was great actually being in the same city. It was almost like we had a REAL work routine. We'd get up, get ready, scoot to work together on Buddy, the mint green scooter, get our favorite coffee at Coffee Bar (to DIE FOR coffee, btw), blast our little space heaters as we cranked up our computers and would get to work:

 My digs at Chateau Phambett

Is that Knight Rider??

Our fav coffee from coffee bar!

6. Fab.com sale- We worked on a ton of jobs while I was out there including our Fab.com sale! It was a huge success thanks to all of our fans. We sold out of our pants series and gangsta series the first day!

Below are some pics we captured on instagram as we were going through the whole process:

Our babies in the making:

Packing up the orders:

7. Napa and Jelly Belly-. Although we spent most every day in our studio, we gave ourselves one freebie day to do whatever we wanted. So of course, like any rational human being would do, we went to the Jelly Belly factory and then headed to Napa. Somehow I didn't get any pictures while we were in Napa... but I did snag some unsolicited pictures in the Jelly Belly factory. Shhhhh.....

You cant' see it here, but our rental car was a minty green, just like Buddy, the scooter.

 

 

8. Trade Show Bootcamp Seminar - Towards the end of my extended stay, Jen and I traveled down to L.A. for a whole day at Trade Show Bootcamp. It was an amazing experience. We cannot thank these lovely ladies enough for putting together an event that was informative and fun. Get ready NSS 2012, Here comes Farewell Paperie!

{Pictures courtesy of Trade Show Bootcamp and Ian Grant Photography}

It's kind of weird to try and wrap a whole month up in one simple sentence. It was fun and crazy and hard work, but it was a great time. We'll do our best to keep you posted on our trade show set up, the spring weddings, and the overall state of our business. The next couple of months are going to be hectic, so stick along for the ride. It's going to get exciting!

The most wonderful time of the year

Wow. 2011 has flown by. We can't believe we are 1 day away from December! After a week of stuffing our faces in our respective Turkey Day locations (Jen was in snowy Denver, while I was in sunny Orlando --You can't get more opposite than that.) we are back on track and getting ready for the upcoming holidays. To kick off the holiday mailing season, we just added our new Christmas and Hanukkah paper goods to our etsy shop. Each card is hand-fed into our trusty C&P letterpress and, of course, have our customary Farewell "flare".

You can purchase our lovely little cards and gift tags through our website or in our etsy shop.

Toddler Twins: Cute Any Way You Look At Them

Okay, folks. Let's get down to the brass tax. Toddlers are cute. Twins are cute. Toddler twins? I can't even handle. It's no secret, we love us some cute kids here at FP. I've pretty much stopped caring about my friends with kids as individuals. No more idle chatter about their work or interests or shows we both watch. Who even notices their haircut or that fun new pair of fall boots. Nope, I just open cold with, "Let's see 'em. Pics. Of your kid. Now." And when the little people with big cutes are actually IN MY OWN FAMILY, it's just that much harder not to squish them until they cry "auntie." So when my brother-in-law Ted and his wife Erin asked us to do thank you cards for these 3-year-old cuties, we knew we had to make them special.

In the consultation, Erin said she just wanted something fun and different for them. Oh yeah, and colorful. I asked her if she was in the "twins are people too" camp and wanted do separate cards for each of them. She chuckled like only a busy mom of twins could and said maybe when they're old enough to actually each write their own. Until then, she'd stick with one streamlined thank you from the both of them.

In the spirit of Erin's efficiency, Lisa and I began to brainstorm fun ways to make one card do the work of two. We toyed around with some ideas for a gatefold, a 2-sided postcard, maybe something circular. Then, Lisa remembered seeing this gem. Not really the kid-friendliest concept, but hey, you can't fight true inspiration. The brainstorm sesh went thusly:

"What is this even called? An anagram? Palindrome?"
"It's called an ambigram."
"wtf is an ambigram?"
"It's that. It looks like one word and when you turn it upside it's another word. The words are flippy."
"That the technical definition?"
"Yes. Ambigram: the words are flippy."
"It's cool. Too bad we couldn't do it for Finn/Riley... Could we?"
"No way.
"Not possible."
"Maybe?"
(Short silence, just fervent sketching...)
 "You'd have to make the y long like an f..."
"The n would have to drop down for the l..."
(More sketching...)
"It's so close, but I'm stuck on the double n. It's not working for the—"
"I think I got it! I got it!"
HOORAY! Our first digital pass went something like this:



No less than 3 hours and 50 files bounced back and forth, tweaking tiny little swoops and curves and refining every stroke, we finally landed on this BAM!bigram. (That's what I'm trying to call it. I'm so far alone in this.)




 Wait a second...



Yup, that's right. Bam!bigram. We just can't decide which side we like better.

All upside-down meeting aside, we're super happy with the way these turned out. We've even considered starting a line of custom ambigram cards. But then we thought about all the Elizabeths and Tims getting married out there and figured we should just relish this one awesome ambigrambial triumph.

I'm in the snowy Rocky Mountains for the holiday week with my husband's family, and yes, Finn & Riley are still just as squishy as ever. I, for one, am very thankful for all the cutienutballheads in my life.

Have a happy Turkey Day, everyone. Safe travels and lots of gravy and kid cuteness to all.

} jp-c

Font Failure

We're not one to share our failures with our fans. We like to look buttoned up and professional with our clients, and let's be honest, who wants to really hear about our mistakes? But for those of you who enjoy our typography postings, we decided it's best everyone know about our little "oops" so they don't make the same one. We'd like to preface this post with a disclaimer: Our font failure isn't that bad. I'm sure plenty of you will read this and think, "Big deal. So What? Who cares?" But we'd like to think our typography skillz (yes with a z) are pretty snazzy. We take pride in our font choices, so we apologize, in advance, to our graphic design friends.... this may hurt your eyes.

(Back Story:) A recent client of ours sent us pictures of her adorable boys for a custom holiday card. Her kids are RIDICULOUSLY cute. We cannot stress that enough. Just to prove our point, here is their Halloween picture:

 (Sorry the pictures was kind of blurry from Facebook. Common this is cute, right?)

 We had created a card for Katie the year before and her pictures did not disappoint. We designed this sweet ditty that everyone really loved. The kids, look charming, the card is heart-warming and it's the perfect holiday card to send to friends and family:

(Side Note:) Sooo my best friend is Katie's sister. She had asked to see the card options to give her opinion to her sister. I had sent all the designs and then threw in this one as a joke. It didn't quite make the cut for obvious reasons:

{Outside}

 {Inside}

 Well unbeknownst to me, this reject was sent to Katie as well, but Katie actually really liked it and wondered why we didn't it as an option in the first place. So this year she asked for a more whimsical holiday card that leaned toward the snarkier side. Once again, we received more adorable pictures of the boys. This time they were riding on a friend's boat during the summer. Life jackets, wind blowing in the hair, captain's hat - it all screamed "nautical". Which led us to this font, Salty Dog:

 

 Perhaps in the right situation this font wouldn't look so bad. To be honest, I'm not sure what we were thinking when we purchased it. Fun - check. Whimsical - check. Hard to read - check. The font was just a failure right off the bat. It looked chunky, and disproportionate. When in the color red, it looks like a candy cane. (An idea for a holiday card??) So we ditched the font.

{For those of you who would like to purchase it, you can find it on myfonts.com No judging. We promise.}

To our advertising/ design friends: Yes, we know from design school to stick w/ the classics. Kitschy fonts are just that, kitschy. Don't purchase frivolous type that you'll only use for one project. Perhaps knowing the rules, we thought we could break them, but that kind of backfired.

In the end, we ended up using a much simpler font, clarendon. Here's a sneak peek of the card. We don't want to spoil it for the client, so we'll post about the final design soon.

Lesson learned? 1) We'll probably stick with our classic fonts and be a little more hesitant before purchasing such a distinct font. 2) We lost $30 down the drain. 3) We have a bad-ass candy cane font that we'll use for holiday cards next year.

Inspiration Day: Holy Jackson Hole!

I've always wanted to go to Jackson Hole. I hear it's a gorgeous place with beautiful snow-capped mountains and clear blue skies. The Grand Tetons are one of the most photographed mountains in the US and were considered part of the gateway to the West.

{The top pic is a famous Ansel Adams print. Courtesy of nps.gov. The bottom picture is from shelamulican.com}

It's the kind of place I'd want to pull a City Slickers and get all countrified for a dude ranch "experience" or go there in the spring to frolic around in all the wildflowers (though I don't think you can really do that since it's protected land, but I can dream, right?)  I'm not sure when I decided that I needed to put this majestic place on my bucket list, or when I'll actually make it there, but since I already experienced the Grand Canyon, and saw the gorgeous Redwood Forests, it seems Jackson Hole would naturally be my next go-to place to visit.

Luckily for me a client of ours is getting married in Jackson Hole this coming August and her wedding theme is all about the great West. We had blogged about Heather's Save the Dates before, but our designs never came to fruition because Hurricane Irene swept through the Caribbean and the bride and groom decided to change their destination to a more meaningful place where they got engaged - enter Jackson Hole. So, playing off of her color palette of blues, whites and reds, and using classic Americana fabrics Jen and I were able to create some lovely ideas for the new Save The Dates.

Obviously we aren't going to show you our ideas JUST yet, but here are some inspirational looks we used to help us create our look for the Save the Date.

 {I don't know why that girl on the right looks so angry. Photo courtesy of refinery29.com}

{Ooh la la, chambray. Photo courtesy of refinery29.com}

 {Classic Americana looks - Denim, cowboy boots and rodeos. Photos from abfits.com & etsy.com}

{Blue & Red Gingham on the left. Classic dark denim on the right.}

{Our color scheme}

We're sent the designs to our client today, so hopefully we'll be able to show you the chosen Save The Date when we finish the design. In the meantime, we have been busy bees working on lots of other custom work, so we should be posting those soon. Keep your eyes peeled!