Dear oh me, it has been a while, hasn't it? We had a crazy November and December and thus, went into total hibernation from the start of the new year until now. Our studio took a well-deserved break in January, and we have been getting ready for the new work year by settling many administrative and backend matters since the start of February. And here we are now, all ready to take on 2017! We thought it would be best to start with a BTS post to give you a quick summary of the months that have gone by. Wrapping up the VSA Christmas Cheer Campaign If you have forgotten what the Christmas Cheer Campaign was about, you can refer to this blog post for all the details. Thanks to the love and support of customers and friends, we managed to send over 200 Happy greeting cards to the VSA Singapore's beneficiaries! It was really heartwarming to see our customers and friends pen down their messages of love and encouragement to complete strangers. We will be embarking on a new social project this year, so stay tuned to our website for more details in the coming months! Rescuing Stray Kitties
Preparing for Christmas Christmas is always the busiest season for us. It may sound a little crazy but our Christmas season actually starts from end September. Our retail line will always get an influx of new products, we have tons of events to plan for and attend, and our studio work increases significantly. (Top L) Trooper being the curious cat while Jia was adjusting the lighting for our product shoot. (Top R) Prep work for props can be totally yummy at times! After all, what is Christmas without a little cocoa? (Bottom L) Preparing tons and tons of Christmas confetti for sale. (Bottom R) Gift boxes and parcels all ready to be sent to our customers. Pop-Up and Private Events Sometimes, our work takes us to places with gorgeous views. This was taken from the TripAdvisor's office. It must be great to go to work everyday with such a magnificent view of the heart of Singapore! (Top L) This is just 3/4 of the stuff we carry around with us to pop-up markets! (Top R) Designers and brand vendors all stuck in the lobby of the F1 Pit Building as it was pouring endlessly towards the end of the Public Garden Christmas event. (Mid L) It was pretty amazing being able to set up a booth in the middle of Orchard Road. This was after a super heavy downpour that had us frantically covering our booth with groundsheets and buying new clothes to wear. We. were. drenched. (Mid R) The aftermath of any pop-up market is always a huge mess. (Bottom) Our two-week long booth at Millenia Walk was awesome as we were next to our good friends, the lovely girls from Operation Overhaul. Wedding Styling Prep One thing that all weddings have in common? The need for floral! Styling prep for weddings meant hours and days combing through nurseries and warehouses. These places are starting to feel like our second homes! A bold and vibrant Indian-Chinese wedding meant tons of sweet-smelling flowers, bangles, and a riot of bright happy colours! The start of any event decor set-up is always a messy affair. The above and below photographs are just some quick snaps of us and our crew setting up a church for a wedding ceremony. The theme of the wedding was greenery and so, we piled on copious amounts of fresh ferns and floral to create a green woodland wonderland. (Top) Putting together this luscious backdrop of ferns and floral for the photobooth took more than four hours! This was the almost completed backdrop with the set-up of cameras and lights. (Bottom) Drapes of ivies, bunches of ferns, and endless lengths of oxblood-coloured ribbons lined the aisle of the sanctuary. Not pictured is the massive amount of greens whimsically decorating the stage and the super cute pot as the centrepiece at the cross. Halia at the Raffles Hotel was a dream to style in! The colonial aesthetic of the restaurant paired beautifully with the wild tablerunners made up of numerous garlands and apples. The center display table was decorated with more lush greens and some woodland flair. It is such a shame that Raffles Hotel has closed this area for renovations since the start of this year. VACAY! (Top) A beautiful costal line on a stormy day in Jeju Island, South Korea.
(Second from top) High up in the misty glorious mountains of Alishan, Taiwan. (Second from bottom) Calm, cold, and incredibly serene winter day in Hokkaido, Japan. (Bottom) The gorgeous shore and turquoise blue waters of Okinawa, Japan. And... we went on vacations. Jia travelled to South Korea and Taiwan while Min explored Japan! Now that we have relaxed and unwind from the hectic year of 2016, our studio is back in action. This means that our regular blog posting will also begin. Do look out for new content in the coming year and more emphasis on design in our everyday life. Here's to an awesome 2017! - With Love, Min+Jia.
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It has been a while since the last update and round-up on all our new releases, so let's get right into it! We have been busy and there are many exciting new launches on our webstore! Wordsearch Postcard Set - The Third Collection We are super psyched to finally launch the third installation of honey&gazelle's bestselling range of puzzle postcards! Being wordsearch puzzle geeks ourselves, we have been absolutely thrilled at the positive response towards the Wordsearch Postcards. Do you know that the first collection of Wordsearch Postcards was introduced in July last year? Wordsearch Postcards are without doubt, one of our favourite products in our retail line and I always get a buzz of excitement whenever I am designing a new collection. The third installation features brand new puzzles with accompanying illustrations in the following themes: Warning: Hot!, Childhood Games, Languages, and Sweets for my Sweet. Watercolour Memo Card Pack The Watercolour Memo Card Pack is a totally new addition to our retail range. When Min and I were young, we often bought boxes and boxes of memo cards that were often adorned with super cute Japanese illustrations. We would then use these memo cards as little greeting cards for birthday presents, petite cards for regular messages to friends, note cards to jot down highly important study notes, and strangely enough, bookmarks. Similarly, these watercolour memo cards are versatile blank cards for you to use however you wish. We love how dreamy the splashes of watercolour turned out! These cards are printed on premium recycled matte stock and can handle many types of markers and inks without leakage. This means that you would be able to use and write on the front AND back of the cards without the fear of ink seeping through to the other side. We love the memo cards so much that we have made them a permanent addition to the honey&gazelle retail line! We will introduce various styles and designs in future, so do keep a lookout for new memo card releases if you like them as much as we do! New arrivals of single greeting cards Last but not least, we have been consistently updating our range of single (individual) greeting cards on a biweekly basis. The below images reveal some of the new designs that are available for purchase! Please remember that all single greeting cards are produced in a very limited quantity, so if you like a particular design, we would definitely recommend that you pick up it up fast! -
Do you have any product suggestions for us? Tell us what you'd like to see us produce next! <3 Jia. Some time back in June, we were approached by the Sample Store to design a range of limited edition postcards for the company's Giftopia Movement campaign. Concerned about the daily addiction to technology and the weakening emphasis on real-life relationship building amongst loved ones, the company wanted to release attractive and fun postcards to encourage communication, the postal-way. And, that's where we came in! honey&gazelle Design Studio designed 18 postcards that were split into sets of threes. We also created an overarching hidden message that would be revealed upon the collection of all the postcards. There is a total of eight sets of postcards to be collected - six sets designed by us and an additional two sets of postcards created by the Sample Store. Simply arrange the postcards in a gorgeous rainbow gradient and with a little bit of brains and hard work, the message will be revealed! We were so thrilled with the designs of the postcards and have been waiting with bated breaths to get the go-ahead from the company to make the announcement. All six sets have finally been manufactured and released by the Sample Store! To our delight, Sample Store produced postcards with pre-paid local (Singapore) postage. How fancy, huh? All you really need to do is write and post! There is absolutely no need to find a stamp to lick and paste. Haha, gotta hate the taste of glue, right? We rarely share about the corporate and studio projects that we work on. So, we thought it would be nice to reveal one project and see if you enjoy reading about our studio work on our blog! Keep reading to find out more about the different concepts of the postcard sets, and if you are bored, don't worry, regular blogging will resume after this post :) (Above) The Love Set This should look pretty familiar, right? Yes, based on our bestselling Say It With Words Greeting Cards, the Love series is a throwback to the good old days of expressing your love with words because everyone loves receiving snail mail straight from the heart! The Love series features our signature artful concoctions of smooth washes of watercolours and delicate illustrations mixed with dainty script to exude the scent of dreamy-eyed tenderness and romance. (Top L) The Reconnecting Set How often have you reminisced about the good times with someone whom you have lost touch with? It is, sadly, a pretty common occurrence as people grow up, embark on different paths in life, and do their best to survive in a competitive hectic world. The Reconnecting series is a lighthearted and simple way to spark new conversations with your old friends. If you have been meaning to rekindle old ties and reconnect with the people you miss, this postcard series is perfect for it! (Top R) The Happy Set Yay, also based on our bestselling Say It With Words Greeting Cards, the Happy series is all about the vibrant strips of watercolours with fun and uplifting hand-written quotes. Share sheer positivity and cheer with these postcards because any surprise snail mail with encouraging words will definitely brighten up someone’s day! (Bottom) The I Spy Set Yep, we produced a special edition of our favourite I Spy puzzle postcards for the Sample Store. This set of I Spy postcards feature letter-writing related illustrations in fresh and cheerful colours. Search for that one unique illustration within the artwork; there is just one that stands alone from the rest! (Top L) The I Jio You Set
‘I Jio You’ is a popular Singlish phrase used by many when asking their friends out for a gathering. As creators of paper with personality, our take on the classic lingo is one of restrained boldness and tongue-in-cheek simplicity. With this series of I Jio You postcards, your friends will now have no reason to say “eh, you bo jio!” once they receive a handwritten invitation from you. How’s that for some understated classiness with Singlish? (Top R) The Motivation Set Last but not least, the Motivational postcard series is an adaptation of our motivational art prints. The postcard series features gorgeous and bold watercolour backgrounds with hand-brushed original quotes that aim to lift you out of the dark abyss. Pass this on to a friend who needs some comfort and encouragement as a way to show that you care. These postcards are only available for purchase at the Sample Store website, so if you are interested, just head on over to their website for more details! - Did any of the postcard sets catch your eye? Tell us which set is your favourite and if we should continue to post highlights from our studio work! With Love, Min+Jia. The new releases in July centers around the lost art of writing. In this day and age, we are always texting or emailing each other. It sure is a lot more convenient but nothing beats receiving a handwritten note from a loved one! Min and I love writing to the ones we love and we love having stationery options to make the process of writing more fun and personal. We are so proud to finally release a new postcard set and single greeting cards! We have been working on these for a substantial amount of time and they are finally stocked in our online store as of today. First up, the Faith Postcard Set. Postcards are such a nostalgic reminder of our teen years as we would often collect free postcards and write to our friends daily. In fact, we still collect postcards and have our own individual stashes hidden in our homes! The Faith Postcard Set was created specifically to encourage. The words on the postcards never fail to comfort and strengthen us, thus we inserted them into our designs hoping that they will in turn serve as a timely reminder to someone in need. We hope that these postcards will encourage you and that you will use them to encourage the people in your life as well! A highlight of this series is the little prayer speech bubble that you can find at the back of the postcards. These prayer bubbles were included as an active reminder for you to keep the people you are writing to in your prayers and to let them know that you are praying for them. You don't have to pen down an entire prayer - the space is too small anyway - but you could write down one or two areas that you would be praying for, e.g. guidance or assurance in their lives. Prayer is powerful! Ever since we expanded our product line to include postcards and greeting cards, we have always been bombarded with this one question, "Can I just buy one card?". Be it online via our contact form, email, our social media platforms (Instagram and Facebook) and conversations on our Carousell store or in person during our pop-up events, this question never fails to pop up. So yes, we heard you loud and clear! By popular demand, we are so happy to finally launch a range of single greeting cards! The range is permanent but the designs are of limited quantity. New designs will be introduced very often to keep this collection fresh and buzzing. Here are the first four greeting cards that are already available online: Thank You, Little Things, Cherished, and New Beginnings. All greeting cards are single-sided and comes with white envelopes and confetti stickers. Being a design studio and paper-obsessive fans, we took a very long time to decide on the paper type for the greeting cards. We combed through all our paper supplies and printed samples on so many different types of paper before finally deciding on a gorgeous 100% recycled matte paper with a lovely weight of 280g/m2. This paper is different from the recycled matte paper we are currently using for all our postcards and we love it so much! We hope that you would be able to feel and see the difference!
To all our customers who have been waiting to purchase single greeting cards from us: thank you for waiting and also for giving us your feedback! We love to have conversations with our customers and we truly value all feedback as it helps us improve and develop our products. We will always try our best to meet your demands and needs! - Do you like the new postcards and greeting cards? What other stationery items would you like us to work on? Do let us know! <3 Jia. Ever since we moved to our new home here, we have yet to blog about the many freebies available for download; so I thought it was time to do a round-up of what's new in the Downloads section! Over the past months, Min and I have been regularly updating the Downloads section of our website with techie wallpapers that were designed with the spring and summer seasons in mind. The first two wallpapers below are a blend of minimalistic clean lines and cheery floral watercolours, created in such a way that you can "do florals" with some restrain. If you ever looked at your refreshing fruity beverage on a hot day and wondered what it would be like to swim in a huge pool of yumminess, trust me, you are not alone. The last two wallpapers were concocted over many humid hazy days and reflect our dreams of swimming in pools filled with lemonade and watermelon smoothie. Doesn't that sound strangely appealing? These wallpapers are available in three sizes. A HD quality wallpaper that is excellent for bigger screens, a slim yet sharp wallpaper perfect for 13" screens, and a parallax wallpaper for your mobile phone and tablets. To download, just head to the Downloads section and choose your preferred size! Asides from tech wallpapers, we also have free and fun printables available for download. We update the Downloads section pretty frequently with new stuff, so do remember to check back every now and then!
- Tell me - what kind of free downloads would you like next? <3 Jia |
Min+JiaThe humans behind honey&gazelle Design Studio. When we are not frantically working, we share our mishmash of thoughts on design, life, and love here. Grab a cuppa and stay for a bit! Categories
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