Thursday
Dec152011
In Good Company: Quill & Fox
I came across the Quill & Fox stationery line last week and was immediately smitten by their offerings. Now they've just introduced these fantastic Terrarium Postcards and I've had to revive myself with smelling salts all over again. Swoon!
Skip on over for a visit to their official site, take a peek at their blog, and then by all means plan a trip to their online shop. You should be able to fill your cart in no time flat. xo Ez
24 Lovely Comments | Email Article | found in Paper Goods, Products I Love, Shops I Love Print Article | Share This | 
| by Ez Thursday, December 15, 2011 
Reader Comments (24)
These are just lovely! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing these! They are super cute.
hee! Those are just so adorable it makes me a tad giddy. My fiance would love the mushroom terrarium one
these are so pretty!
I saw these on etsy a few weeks ago and really like their Thank You cards!
Really nice, I thought it was Rifle Design at first.
So pretty, what a gorgeous find! Am bookmarking this page as my wallet is almost at empty this close to Christmas, but you never know what little presents I might buy myself in the new year hehe.
i have the *biggest* design crush on them right now! how did i miss the terrarium cards? looks like a couple have been scooped up today.
so pretty! loving these!
These are lovely, I love the Terrarium illustrations - but can I just say it seems to be REALLY similar to Rifle Paper Co. I don't know how to feel about that.
Hi Ez! A friend showed me this feature. Thanks a bunch of featuring my cards! :) I'm super flattered you dig them.
I've been drawing like these ever since (maybe out of necessity since I'm not exactly a da Vinci hee hee) but it has worked out quite fun for me. I'm reading above Christine's comment about the Rifle similarities. I'm very floored with the comparison but I'm also sorry that that it strikes you that way. I've actually been recently inspired by this wonderful artist off of http://etsy.me/vep2I7 . It reminded me a lot of the Natalie Lete style of flower drawings (in a good way!), and pretty much a lot of the very simplistic painterly flowers we've been seeing a lot. :)
Thanks for your comments everyone!
Yas, it was my pleasure. As far as the Rifle comparison...I can definitely see similarities in the overall feel of your work (so I understand where Christine is coming from), however I believe that your pieces are distinctly you and not copies. Keep up the beautiful work. I can't wait to see more. xo Ez
Ahhh! That terrarium card set! I haven't been this excited about a product in a long, long time. Thank you for putting it on the radar.
I googled rifle paper/quill and fox today. I wanted to see what others were saying. As a graphic designer, this breaks my heart. Quill and Fox, how can you sell your designs knowing that you are completely stealing from rifle paper? The guilt seems all the more obvious by your comment that you are 'floored' by the comparison. The Hello cards which debuted back in spring of 2011 for rifle paper are being completely ripped off. Even the color palette! Quill and Fox, it's one thing to be inspired, but to steal is wrong.
Hi!
I'm floored by the comparison because she does great work. I don't understand how that shows guilt. If you could link me the collection you're talking about I'd very much like to level with you on this! I assure you I wasn't copying anyone, and I'm sorry you feel that way. I think stealing is too strong a word for something that aren't duplicated copies. I'm not quite sure what color palette you feel I've stolen from as I've always ever just went with colors I like, especially colors I tend to wear a lot! :) Granted their probably colors I see a lot on magazines, and stores like J Crew. I credit Rifle a lot for having a good ear to the ground in trends and even thinking ahead of it. But I don't think the colors she chooses are something she solely propagated. The use of gold for example is a really huge trend right now and I see a lot of artists use not just her.
It's a huge (but fun) challenge with card designers coming up with elements and visuals on topics that have been overdone so many times, like thank you's and hello's. It's always fun coming up with unexpected and new ways to illustrate them. But I think much of the charm too is reinvigorating old cliche's and everyday things.
You're more than welcome to email me at yas (at) quillandfox (dot) come if you wanted to talk more about the topic. It's a bit odd talking to an anonymous person for one too! Heh. I'd be more than happy even to show you my process and the reference inspirations I've done to create my designs.
Yas
I think it's so annoying when people say one designer copied another. Yas is right, we all take our inspiration from somewhere and color trends show up all around us! Two people can definately have a similiar style and that's fine!! How many flowery wedding invitations are out there? I think they are both beautiful designers with similiar "taste" in style! More for us to love!
I have to disagree with the harsh remarks about Yas copying Anna of Rifle. As a fellow designer, I know it's ridiculous to believe that every piece I create will 'reinvent the wheel'. Everything ever created by man has been inspired by either something or someone else. I think Yas and Anna do have very similar styles but in no way do I find Yas a knockoff. I think she has a very clever and fun, silly element in many of her cards that is unique and fresh. Artists are so worried to be accused of copying that they often don't pursue something that may have been their best work. I love that hand painted illustrations are making a comeback and I would hate for other artists to be disencouraged from creating something beautiful because they're afraid of looking like a copycat. A blatant knockoff is one thing, but 2 similar styles which both happen to be the same amount of gorgeous is another : )
http://www.creaturecomfortsblog.com/home/2012/1/5/site-for-sore-eyes-wednesday.html
the terrarium card seems very inspired from the terrarium featured in this post (photo from fall 2010-designed by a stationery company).
@rebecca
I see a similarity, but as that's a whole new medium I don't agree with you if you think she copied that. I'm sure many designers reference from many places and objects. Yas still makes it her own. And just because her style is similar doesn't mean anything either; I'm seeing lots of similar styles all over, but each has something unique. Quill & Fox especially.
What's with the hate anyway? People are missing out on something beautiful.
I agree Audrey. Thank you for making that point. Artists are often inspired by the things that surround them. Throughout history artists have used models and studies from life to inspire their work. Finding inspiration in an actual terrarium and painting it hardly makes Yas a copier, anymore than Monet would be for painting a vase full of Sunflowers or a pond filled with lily pads.
Coming late to this party, because I just saw this work in Discover Paper last night, and then also googled "quill and fox rifle paper." I thought Rifle had branched, and wanted to know why...and this is where my search first took me in google. : )
It's totally understandable to be inspired by others. I am too. Other cultures, other places, other people... of course.
But, I also feel that it's more rewarding to, after inspiration strikes, try your hardest to take it into new territory where you can. Put the design into a new format, add something you haven't seen before... try a new twist with packaging, add a feature, add a function...something new. Stop looking at the internet for a few weeks. See where that takes you...I guarantee it will be somewhere new, new, new.
That being said, I do feel that the cumulative effect of all these similar elements... the art direction, the illo style, the graphics on the site (like the where to buy map- eerily similar to Rifle's 'where to buy') and the packaging too, are so, so close. But, when I look veeery closely, the concepts have a little bit of a different voice...a voice that is playful and wonderfully quirky...
In terms of design as a profession, as someone in business, I will say that it always is smart to try and differentiate your brand where you can - especially if your graphics or design sense are very similar to other people's- it's a big world, and there is nothing wrong with sharing an asthetic or technique. There is still room in packaging, art direction, copywriting... all that... to invite people into who you, particularly, are as an artist. In the long run you will forge stronger ties with your true audience.
Yas,, I look forward to seeing where you grow. You obviously have high standards, and great technical skill to match. : )
First off, thanks for all the comments in this thread. It's been a year or so since I last commented on it, and I thought I'd do so one more time! For tradition's sake :) Warning, long wall of text ahead!
This particular topic really is captivating and will always be close to my heart, as it mirrors a stationery industry that's only going to get more eclectic and yet very similar at the same time. I'm excited that we have this growing trend of hand-painted styles (that is even starting to trickle down to letter-pressed stationery!). I've also seen more and more hand-drawn artist in the past year too. It's an exciting place to be in right now, and I'm very thankful to be a part of it.
What I do wish we could curb though, is the attitude of putting down demarcation lines so quickly on who can own which style of drawing. We're not even talking about actual copied art here, and no one is truly the *first* when it comes to these things. I'm starting to foresee the boundaries get more blurred as we go, especially as we start seeing a lot of people turn their inspirations back to the ephemera, the simplistic mid-century illustrations (like Robert Duvoisin), the dead-center framing that's very Wes Anderson, (I mean, I can go on and on..)
I appreciate Susy's feedback. I know how the internet, especially with pinterest these days, proliferate trends with such speed and coverage. I totally see where you're coming from, pointing out how we're very similar and "eerily" so in some aspects. Honestly, I find it quite eery too. But I realize too that a lot of generic things can get pretty similar when hand-painted in the same opaque saturated way--even basic iconic things you'd normally see in a shop website. I also realize that maybe some packaging trend, as much as it's being done by a lot of other shops, only serves to culminate to that similarity for our part, because the drawing style is already rather similar to begin with. I suppose that's part of the challenge than I can always push on, like you said.
Moment of honesty: I don't look at their work much. Ok, actually I've been quite successful at avoiding it altogether. I can only imagine all the eye candy I miss out on. My longest streak was 8 months? Because really, they're everywhere--!
I do it not because I wanted to prove how "different" and "unique" I can be to the world. It was more for myself as an artist, to actually not be afraid if we do in fact end up similar. In the beginning, especially when I first received the feedback--I would always counter check if what I came up with has already been done somewhere, are the colors similar, etc etc. and then reverse the creative process, and actively dismantle the similarities. I wouldn't even call that a creative process anymore. It was as mechanical and uninspired as filing taxes.
I then realized that as much as it was important for me to maintain a unique identity and voice, It was equally important for me not to curb my own style into something else just to be "different".
I put more premium on a true honest voice, than something that's unique. Because nothing is truly unique these days, technically so. What makes an art work feel "unique" is the honest voice behind it. Which I pledge to you I give my whole heart on. I've scratched away too many ideas before (that I personally thought were great) that I've realized have been done, after the fact, and sometimes I wonder if I should've scrapped them at all. I know as a designer we should be used to "killing your own babies" but it's never not heartbreaking.
That being said, I'm not altogether above the demarcating attitude. I've found myself on more than one occasion exclaiming *silently* "Hey! That design looks so much like ______." or I even do a playful huff with my husband when I see the Rifley flower style trend being seen everywhere. And sometimes I think "I don't even draw the same things and all these decorative flowers like them, and yet there's always corners of hate here and there.. :( "
Going back to your feedback, Susy-- I agree that there is something much more rewarding when you bring something new to the table. Much like giving someone a birthday present they never thought they'd want, as opposed to giving them their old favorites. I'm constantly learning on how to do so without necessarily breaking the mold (because I believe we don't always have to). I like dainty things, but I'm can be quite androgynous and dark humored. But I wouldn't always want to infuse that on every product, because that wouldn't just be me either. I hope I did a good job communicating my own style and personality, especially from all the Quill & Fox work last year. We're launching a few new ones in the next few couple of weeks that's going to be even more so. And I'm excited to have our personality shine through even more, and hopefully you'd think so as well. I've put a lot of time and effort trying to draw something conceptually different each time, for every card or product we have. I know that it can be frustrating to still have people see the similarities instead of what makes it different, but it's a challenge I'm willing to take on! :) I appreciate your encouragement, it means a lot.
And always thank you Ez for the support and for providing us the platform! :)
*** Wall of text right? Don't say I didn't warn ya! :) ***
Oops I forgot a PS.
The terrarium card we have is actually a bottle. I believe that one is a christmas ball with a hole drilled in it? (That being said they both have tin bases on them, which was probably my effort to balance out four set variety, 2 on 2.) I see the similarity however!
I found this page like most other people. I was looking at Rifle Paper Co. illustrations online, and then I found Quill and Fox. I have to say, as a freelance illustrator myself (who looks to nostalgia and vintage storybooks for inspiration, and also works with goauche and digital as my mediums) creatives like Quill and Fox are why I hesitate to post any of my preliminary drawings or products online until the packaged products are in stores. I am saddened that this is a blatant rip off of Rifle Paper Co. I too have an extreeemely similar style to Anna Bond, however, I am completely aware of it. With that being said, I strive to make everything my own. I steer clear of elements that she is currently using because I want to be respected for my own creativity and not be compared to someone else. Does it suck sometimes because I go, "Aw, man! I had that same idea!" Yes, but I also am creative enough to come up with a new idea on my own that is not an outright copy of elements. The Quill and Fox "Make A Wish" card, "Feliz Cumpleanos" card, and "Hoppy Birthday" card, are ridiculously obvious takes from Rifle Paper Co. I agree that it is unavoidable to have similar styles with other creatives. We are constantly inspired by each other, and illustrators with similar styles probably look to the same techniques for inspiration. To say you do not see the similarities or were completely unaware is just silly at this point. Anna Rifle is a huge company now, so you can not play the aloof card. I think Quill and Fox needs to be smart at this point and realize someone else with a similar style has built an extremely successful brand. To avoid all dramatic comparison, make it a point to AVOID using the EXACT SAME DESIGN ELEMENTS. It's just smart business, really. It's also respectful and proper in the design community. That's what I do, had to do, and will continue to do, because I am aware.