Hello girls!
You might have seen them already as they are getting very popular!
I discovered Jenny and Graziano’s wedding invitations and stationery Shhh My Darling a few months ago, but I only had a chance to write about it today.
I had a nice exchange of e-mails with Jenny, who by the way comes from the Veneto region so not far from where I used to live, and discovered a bit more about her and Graziano, partners in work and life.
This is the little interview I put together with some nice pics of their work! Enjoy!
I love the name of your business, where does Shhh My Darling come from?
Sometimes brand names are not a marketing operation but the result of a random thought. That was our case to, it happened just like that.
We were working at some shoots done a few days before in a park here in Rome which had a deer stuffed head and in one of these shoots we were gently telling the head to shut up. We thought this would have looked quite nice in our graphic design and the sentence that naturally came out of it was Shhh, My darling! We liked it so much that we decided to use it as the name of our agency.
Your illustrations have a very original style (I could recognise your animals among hundreds of them!), how did you come up with this idea?
It has been a while since we moved to more “naturalistic” themes. We have seen a general return to the discovery of nature in visual arts and a particular attention to the animal life. We already had a wide range of illustrated postcards featuring animal heads which were quite popular overseas. So when we decided to create a brand new wedding collection we decided to use the same subjects, couples of animals dressed like bride and groom.
Where do you get inspiration from?
The web is one of our main channels of inspiration, together with international magazines and travels. Our studio is a source of inspiration too: it’s full of random objects that we buy everywhere, especially at flea markets. Other sources are illustration books, old toys, postcards, ribbons and paper sample…every now and then we try to clean up our desks but it doesn’t last more than a few minutes!
Going back to name choices, I simply love the name of your wedding collection “We smell the same”. How did you come up with this idea?
We came up with the idea of this collection when we were in New Zealand visiting some friends. We thought of the animals’ instinctive behaviour of smelling each other’s, of the fact that they recognise each other’s smell. A mother recognises the smell of her puppies and a couple get together because of an olfactory attraction.
What is the first question you ask a client who chooses your wedding stationery?
Our clients are people who are looking for something different and have already clear ideas on what they want. Most of the time they found us online or via word of mouth so they exactly know our style.
We always try to understand their needs so that we can suggest something completely personalised, some other times they are the ones who come to us asking for specific ideas or details.
It seems obvious, but the first question that we would need is the number of guests…most of them write to us with very detailed descriptions on what they would like but then they forget to tell us where and when they get married!
Last question, how did you meet?
It was ages ago we both worked in the illustration sector and we both dreamt of doing illustrations as a full time job.
One morning I went to the studio where I used to work and I met this new chatty designer with messy hair. It didn’t take long, a year later we were engaged and we both left the studio. “We smell the same”
