This is such a fun time of year as I start to get acquainted with first-time exhibitors I’ll get to meet in less than five months at National Stationery Show. One of them is Our Heiday, a downtown Los Angeles stationery and gift design company founded by illustrator and hand-letterer Patricia Shen.
Like so many before her, Patricia came to stationery after deciding a career in another realm was not for her. “I started at UCLA Law immediately after graduating college, and it took two years to realize that I was not willing to spend my entire career behind a desk reading contracts, briefs or filing paperwork,” she wrote me. “I left just before my third year began, hoping to pursue something that pushed my boundaries and made it easier for me to get out of bed in the morning. There was so much creative frustration brewing internally and it soon exploded into what is now this little company.”
Looks like there was a quite a vision brewing! I am loving Patricia’s sophisticated, painterly look. Mesmerizing lettering too.
So far the line, just launched last June, consists of greeting cards and art prints, with notebooks and wrapping paper in production. If you’re lucky maybe a stockist is nearby!
Our Heiday is named for Patricia’s mom and her four sisters “who are some of the most artistic people I know,” Patricia said. “Three of my aunts started a painted greeting card line about ten years ago, and my mom has run a business since I was four years old. Together they fostered my creativity growing up and without them, I would never have imagined a creative career for myself. All their Korean names begin with “Hei,” and they’ve shown me that everyday can be my heiday.”
