This Disgruntled Ship

Our last post dealt with all the wonderful thousands of things we’ve been up to recently. In the sense of balanced journalism, we figured we’d give a more clear picture of the results of a maddening printer (on the verge of its second meltdown in the middle of giant print jobs) and a night of grueling design work. One more reason to be bursting with excitement about getting the letterpress soon; at least that was built to last longer than 2 years.

To paraphrase Timmy in the Sandlot: We blame ourselves, mostly.

And yet, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Old News + Good News

A lot has happened for us at This Paper Ship since our last update ages ago! We feel like we’ve been in a frenzy for the last few months, and when we look back at everything we’ve been up to, it’s no wonder. Here’s a brief recap with photos to match:

1. Studio expansion.
To match the client demand that’s been growing this summer, we’re in a state of constant streamlining of our workspace. But recently we’ve been expanding to take on more equipment and space: our new addition, the letterpress from Dock 2 Letterpress in upstate NY, should be coming to us in September! We’re also looking into moving to another historic apartment downtown to accommodate our new equipment.

2. Food, food, and more food.
Joel recently had to start working outside of the studio to help us get on our feet, landed himself into the food industry, and discovered that his passion for cooking was a lot more intense than we thought! Despite a failed attempt to start culinary school this fall (didn’t get the application finished in time), 1/2 of This Paper Ship is surfing the kitchens of Greensboro. Meanwhile, we’re still rocking our own kitchen when we’re not in the studio and telling all about it on our food blog Rational Jar of Honey. Pictured above is our most recent project, summer 2010 canning.

3. New illustration series.
We recently branched off of our sea series to incorporate a theme that is nearer and dearer to us: farm-to-kitchen. We’re pushing the whimsy, the colors, the 1960’s influence, and the hand-drawn type, and this time we’re drawing from our own passions, pun intended. Check them out in our shop! (Hint: they would look great hanging up in a kitchen…)

4. New services officially offered: PHOTOGRAPHY.
If you’ve been following our work for any amount of time, you may have seen that there’s a photographer in our midst. A little-known fact about Ashley is that, though she graduated along with Joel with a graphic design degree, she actually double-majored for the first 2 years at Shepherd in photography and design; and although the design won out, photography has been a huge part of our studio since. Ashley has since roped Joel in and we’re officially taking the plunge and offering our photography services to the world! We recently shot a wedding in June in Bozeman, MT and an engagement portrait session last month in Columbia, SC, and more are in the works. Be sure to watch our photography blog for updates, and if you need a photographer for a portrait session or your wedding, shoot us an e-mail at thispapership@gmail.com for more information on our pricing packages!

Things are moving & shaking for This Paper Ship… stay tuned!

Heather Ross

This illustration is from a post on Heather’s blog (of course we appreciated the paper boats)!

The first time I came in contact with something designed by Heather Ross was in Philadelphia while visiting with my good friend Chelsea at this amazingly beautiful shop called Spool (next to Loop) where I bought this whimsical octopus fabric. It was the cutest and most unique fabric I had ever seen in person! Heather Ross is one of many talented artists that keeps This Paper Ship inspired at full steam ahead. Sure we grumble about why we couldn’t have created something that good ourselves (don’t all artists at one point or another?), but really it keeps us motivated and ever-raising that proverbial bar. Looking into her story further you’ll find that not only is her work incredible and inspiring, but her story is too. As a kid she grew up in a rural life without a TV or phone, and was left to find creative ways to keep herself busy, including learning to sew and knit before age six! Read her whole story here on her about page of her website! It’s artists like Heather Ross that really make us want to never give up the dream of one day being children’s book illustrators and to not be afraid of embracing that whimsical and child-like style that we love! Take a stroll around her website and be inspired! Be sure and check out her blog too!

—Ashley

Mary Blair

This week we watched the original 1951 Alice in Wonderland after seeing the new one in the theater. It was so inspiring! The rich, whimsical, and colorful imagery through-out the film left us wide-eyed and ready to paint. We can thank Mary Blair for much of that inspiration! Her talented concept art inspired the animation of the entire film (as well as a number of other classic Disney movies). Here are a few examples of her incredible work:

Vote for Float!

We jumped onto the tracks again and put up a new t-shirt on Threadless! Please show your support and vote! Thanks!!!

Float - Threadless T-shirts, Nude No More

All is love

Light Writing Proposal from Derick Childress on Vimeo.

We recently stumbled upon this video on a photo blog and thought it was incredible enough to share with you! It’s an extremely creative engagement that will make your eyes well up with tears.

Amber + John & Luke Eshleman Photography

Today we’re featuring the amazing work of Luke Eshleman Photography who shared clients Amber and John with us, a couple we designed wedding invitations and programs for last Fall. As we’re sure Luke experienced, they were an incredible couple to work with! It made us feel like a million bucks when Amber told us about opening the programs in front of her whole family the day before the wedding and getting teary. It reminded us why we love doing invitations so much.

Luke did an incredible job capturing their festive Fall wedding day, so much so that we had a hard time choosing which photos to post! The colors are rich, warm, and have a vintage feel to them. We absolutely love it! It’s always a fun surprise when our wedding clients pass along their photographers’ photos, especially when the photos are this beautiful. We highly recommend taking a stroll around his website! We really appreciated the personal section of photography.

Hats off to Luke and good luck to Amber and John!

Brought to You By Joelf

Drawing an F on my shirt.

Now that Spring to Spring is officially over, this is an official announcement that I (Joel) have started my new yearlong solo project A Year of F! I’ll be drawing/designing/building a letter F every day for a whole year, in tribute to my favorite letter as a kid and to my love of typography. Here’s to a full year of letters!

Stay tuned for a similar announcement about Ashley’s new secret solo project!

—Joel

Tonya + Michael Map

To follow up with another photographer that had a client in common with us, here’s Melanie Mansfield’s photo of Tonya and Michael’s wedding map. Normally we get regional maps and city maps, but this one was unique because it was the first request for an entire U.S. map.

Their colors were black and white so we kept it simple, and we hand-drew it and highlighted all of the prominent places they have been together. Instead of ordering multiple smaller copies, they had us send them a 13 x 19 printed copy on French Paper (our favorite) for them to frame and display at their wedding.

They did an amazing job! It looks really great. The rest of their wedding was beautiful, as all of our client’s weddings have been. It’s always a pleasure looking through photos from the events that we design things for!

Here’s Melanie’s beautiful photo and our drawing below it:

Angel + Walter & Pure 7 Studios

Angel and Walter came to us for wedding invitations last year and we had a blast designing their rich jewel-toned, elegant, and patterned suite. Recently Angel followed up and kindly sent us a link to her photographer’s site, showcasing photos of their wedding and even a few shots of their rings on our invitations. It was fun seeing our work in context of the rest of the charming wedding. SO, we decided to contact the photographers for permission to do a blog post about it.

Pure 7 Studios is a husband and wife photography team, Erica and Ryan, with 3 adorable kids. They are based out of Destin, Florida and their work is beautiful and inspiring (especially for us since we’re photographers at heart when we’re not designing/drawing things). They have a real eye for capturing the mood and moment. We just love their photography!

When we wrote to them requesting usage of their photos, Erica immediately responded to us. Before we knew it she had edited and passed along the photos. The unexpected part was her follow-up, asking if we would be interested in collaborating on some illustration work for their website. Of course we couldn’t pass up the request! We always love connecting with other fellow creatives (especially husband-and-wife teams whom we feel akin to) and this was another amazing opportunity to do so. We’ll let the work we’re doing for them remain a secret until they complete everything on their end.

Here are a few of the invitation/ring shots they took for Angel and Walter:

If you live in the Destin area or dream of having a wedding there, definitely check them out!