A Brand is Born

CONFESSION NUMBER ONE: The first time Maree said our company name over the phone we both burst out laughing. We were calling a paper company and it just tripped off her tongue. it sounded right. As artist and designer we are no stranger to the ethos of keeping it small, doing it yourself and keeping things pretty personal. To tell you the honest truth the name of our paper company came from a really personal source. When I fell in love this year with a man known as...um...Tree, I signed my texts: Little Branch. It was an image that appealed to both us, something that could grow, an everyday sight made special by a closer look, something natural and above all, linked to nature and ecology. The guiding principle of our new card company is sustainable beauty. We have chosen papers that are made of seventy percent recycled local waste material. In time, as paper technology evolves, we might graduate to a 100 percent recycled Australian made paper. Recycling is not just an environmentally sound idea, it's a viable creative process. Maree recycles all of the fonts, layouts, film stills, magazine spreads and book plates she has ever loved in the subtle process of her design. I tend to find images in my drawings that have traveled from the edge of a hand embroidered apron, a vintage travel print or the bottom of a tea cup. Sooner or later it all bubbles to the surface.


As this is our second blog I'll tell you where we work. Maree has built a small study at the side of her daughter Jasmin's bedroom. It's still winter so when I arrive there is a ritual where I put on a pair of candy striped bed socks and set to drawing. Above my little desk is a picture of a girl (torn from a Vogue magazine) in a watered silk dress and various raw branches and several large leaves and branches pinned up. Sometimes we both sit on the floor roving through magazines or art books, sometimes I drift off an make more pear and jasmine tea (we average two pots per design session)  but more often I just draw till the ideas come and Maree moves ideas around at the speed of light.


I often peek over one shoulder and see what she is concocting, reconfiguring and brewing with the new scans. The leap from original art to design is shorter than many would imagine. Sometimes we compose a card from the drawing straight (see our abstract pear tree) and other times Maree will create veils of imagery, layering drawings on wallpapers or toiles or simply making subtle changes to a composition by changing the arrangement or scale. I love her taste. I guess that's why we teamed up. She's the baroque frame around my rough edges.


CONFESSION NUMBER TWO: Maree say’s she swears but I swear quite a lot more. I especially swear when I am happy with a finished design and Maree, who is naturally classy, just laughs. Our music selection is charmingly crap. We have been listening to the same Red Hot Chilli Peppers CD for 8 weeks because essentially I am too disorganized to sort an ipod. I am considering sending Anthony Keidis a gift boxed set for Christmas because in his way he has been our muse. Him. And also the man known as Tree.