Handmade drawings

A bit of a flashback: after Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge wrote about our work in July 2008, things at our small home-office in Kerala got pretty hectic, as I mentioned in my previous post. It was in this crazy moment that I felt like we needed a unique way to thank those first few shoppers who placed orders with us.

I started sketching some handmade thank-you cards to add to the first shipments that left our office. It was so much fun making them that it quickly turned into an obsession: before long we had sent out over a hundred cards! Basically it turned into a side-project where I tried to find as many ways to illustrate the words "Thank You"; above and below are a few:

 

These cards were all water-color and ink drawings measuring approximately small 4" squares. I wanted our brand to be thought of as approachable, fun, experimental and most of all: personal. This simple act of shopping meant a lot to our small business with a social objective, so right from the moment they opened the parcel to the super-soft fabrics that were in it, we wanted the whole experience to be special.

Here's a snap of one set of towels before and after they got into the hand-stitched cloth "envelopes".

One of the Thank-You cards, all packed up with the towels.

Hand-sewn cloth packaging as required by our postal service

I started posting pictures of the cards on our website at the time, just because I thought they added a fun look to the brand. People sent us sweet notes about getting the cards with the towels, so we thought we were on the right track. What I did not expect were the requests that started coming for the cards! At the time our hands were so full with maintaining a smooth flow of work that we could not really take up the offer.

My favorite helper during my drawing-spree... miss the fun times with this one!

With the launch of our new website + block-prints a few weeks ago, I've been toying with the idea of restarting this on fabric. What do you think? :)