Pinspired!

I guess it all started with Pinterest!

Like... well, just about everyone... I'm addicted to Pinterest. And the whole pinning experience had a funny effect on me. As I marinated in chicken mushroom soup crockpot recipes and got all tied up in DIY bow-making tutorials, I became entranced by the beauty of the whole site. It really is a gorgeous site. And it inspired me to start creating. Again.

I've always been a crafty girl, but my real passion is for graphic design. I was a high school publications teacher for a decade and a huge part of that was teaching graphic design. Let's just say, I knew my way around Adobe Creative Suite and a printing press. But this was the first time I started creating--just pure "what do I want to make today?" joy--with no end result in mind. And what I ended up with was patterns. Of all shapes, colors and inspirations. And just like when I first started studying typography (and if you've ever truly studied fonts--type, classification, stroke widths, x-height, ascenders, descenders, I could go on--you'll know exactly what I'm talking about) it was like I was seeing things for the first time.

Pattern was everywhere. How had I never noticed, truly noticed, it before? Sure, I'd picked out a dress in Banana Republic because I liked the pattern or noticed the lining of a particular purse was a neat fabric, but this awareness was sharp, explicit and all-encompassing. Let's just say walking through Target was an all-out assault on the eyes.

I had to do something with all that gorgeous pattern! It wasn't a beeline, but somehow my trajectory took me to stationery. And I haven't looked back.

Falling in love with pattern has been an intense, heady, steep descent. I hope it's not just a crush.

Follow me on Pinterest! http://pinterest.com/kacthorpe/