It's summer at last, and some of the new patterns from Galison look just right for the seaon. Even though my own weekends in the country are spent on yardwork and chores and getting groceries and doing laundry, I often fantasize about sitting on an enclosed porch drinking iced tea and writing.
Instead, I often head out for a recreational bike ride in southern Vermont. On a recent ride, I stopped for a break at one of several covered bridges in the area: Henry Bridge, which is just south of Bennington.
Now what does this have to do with Galison? Well, before our fall collection was published, the editorial team kept talking about "Henry Road," which mystified me. Henry Road? It turns out that they were working with a designer, Paula Smail, who runs a Los Angeles-based design studio with that name. Have a look at Paula's blog and her website. There was also a recent article in the L.A. Times about her store and a good interview with Paula Smail on the Indie Fixx blog.
Galison's Henry Road pattern is so bright and clean, and it's been applied to Home Office items and other popular formats. Here's a sampling, but you can see the whole Henry Road Collection at the Galison website.
Doesn't it make you want to sit in the shade and write a note?
Paula said she named her design studio for a childhood home in South Africa, and she credits her aesthetic of bold color to blinds in the Henry Road house, African cloth, and color field painters like Rothko.
In addition to the stationery set, sticky notes, memo mouse pad, social note cards, and pencil holders shown above, there's a new business card holder, boxed thank you notes, a file fote, and coordinating file folders. Theoretically, I could sit on the porch drinking iced tea, get by bills paid and filed, write long overdue notes to far-flung friends, a thank you note to my mother, and store my moveable pen collection in a colorful pencil cup!
But more realistically, I'll bike up past the Henry Bridge for an iced cream sundae in Bennington.
----Susan
P.S.
Design Sponge was very enthusiastic about this pattern in a post of May 5. At that time, the products were not in stock, but as of June 1, they are all available in stores and at the Galison online store.