It’s a big deal when any brand reaches its 10th anniversary, but when the brand in question is a stationery brand, that’s extra special. While the love between a mother and child forms Heartell Press’ core, its messaging aims to honestly lift anyone up as they navigate life’s myriad pitfalls and challenges. Its founder and illustrator Rachel Kroh was gracious enough to share more about her brand’s backstory below.
SS: Congratulations on reaching your 10th anniversary! In that span, how do you think stationery messaging has evolved?
RK: Thank you! It feels like a big milestone and I appreciate you and your readers celebrating with us. 🙂
I started making woodblock letterpress cards in 2012 after my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I had trouble finding the kind of warm, sincere messages I wanted to send her. Most “sympathy” or “get well” cards at that time did not fit our situation. There was very little reason to think she might “get well soon.” While there were plenty of cards offering condolences after a death, none spoke to the anticipatory grief we were feeling in the wake of her terminal diagnosis.
The industry has expanded since then to include a much wider range of messages. Emily McDowell’s Empathy Cards (now Em & Friends) are probably the most visible example, and there are lots of other makers who are offering beautiful cards with more nuanced sentiments. Writers and speakers like Brené Brown, Cheryl Strayed and Sheryl Sandberg have helped to bring our culture forward in terms of equipping us with language to speak about the role grief plays in our lives and relationships. But I would say that, by and large, our North American culture is still largely illiterate when it comes to how we think about our own grief and having skills to support others who are grieving.
The true fact is that 100% of us will experience grief and loss multiple times in our lives. Our mission at Heartell is to help people nurture one another through all of life’s ups and downs by creating cards that let us express and hold space for the full range of emotions, feelings and experiences.
SS: Tell me about recent releases that speak to that.
RK: One new design features a box of tissues on a shelf next to photo frames with images of wedding bells, a birthday cake, a diploma and a baby rattle. It reads “Sometimes the best days are some of the hardest — thinking of you today.” I have found that milestones that are “supposed” to be happy occasions, like birthdays and welcoming a new baby into a family, can bring up complicated feelings in the wake of a loss. Helping someone process the grief that is a natural response to having an important person be absent for those experiences can free them to be fully present to the joy contained in those moments.
Pet loss can be one of the many forms of what social workers call disenfranchised grief — the losses we feel deeply but don’t give ourselves (or each other) permission to acknowledge as profound. So we are releasing our first pet loss card this summer, based on a drawing I made at a favorite beach here in Washington where lots of people love to walk their dogs.
Another new design, “I’m Listening” is an example of the kind of open-ended messages that help hold space for whatever the receiver might be feeling. I think what so many of us crave is the experience of being seen and held in whatever mix of emotions and feelings and thoughts are coming up for us at any given moment. It is a hard thing to try to capture in a greeting card but I hope the glowing, twilit garden scene on this card will give both senders and receivers a quiet little place to connect in an authentic way.
SS: Are any recent releases shaping up to be bestsellers?
RK: Everyone on our team placed friendly bets when I was back in Indiana in May finalizing the new collection (the winner gets to pick the restaurant for our next team outing). It is always fascinating to see which designs take off — I can’t always predict it and in fact I am often wrong. Since the cards haven’t been released at the time of this writing I can’t say which ones will win out with buyers this season, but Reading With You and Heart of the Forest got the most votes from our team.
SS: Your brand has been sustainable since it debuted. Can you share your environmental practices since day 1?
RK: Paper is our primary raw material, and from the beginning, we’ve used 100% post-consumer recycled paper, which means we haven’t disturbed any forests or disrupted the natural habitat of any species through our work. The inks we use for our letterpress cards and prints are vegetable-oil based with no hydrocarbon solvents. The black ink we use is made from algae (the very same kind that you can add to your smoothie — spirulina) and is the first bio-based, renewable pigment alternative to carbon black (a carcinogen derived at great environmental detriment from petroleum). We’ve always been as careful as possible with regard to our packaging, using recycled content and avoiding plastic wherever possible. All our shipping boxes are made with 80% recycled content and our mailers are 100% recycled.
SS: What newer environmental practices have you implemented, or are you working on implementing?
RK: This last year we partnered with One Tree Planted, so now every order plants a tree! Shoppers on our retail site also have the option to add $1 to each order and plant a second tree. We switched to recycled paper boxes from plastic boxes a while back for our card sets and with our release of patterned greeting cards in assorted sets earlier this year, we took things one step further. Each box (made with 100% recycled paper) comes with a surprise pattern printed inside and a guide to repurposing the box into a photo frame! You can even turn the scraps into patterned paper chains, so no part of the box has to go back into the waste stream.
Our Generous Kitchen Towels have always been screenprinted with water-based, non-toxic inks. We’re releasing six new towel designs this summer, and this new group is special because we used only natural dyes to color the fabric. Some of the pigments used in the dye baths were madder root, pomegranate rinds and cutch. The designs also feature plants that are used to make natural dyes like yarrow, marigolds and cornflowers.
We are also releasing our first collection of die cut stickers this summer, and I’m proud of the fact that they are Greenguard Certified and contain no PVC, chlorine or halogen.
SS: Please tell my readers about Art for Change.
RK: In 2020 we created our Art for Change project to produce art prints, posters and postcards to generate funding for organizations that support BIPOC small business owners. We add to the collection periodically, and for the first few years we donated all the profits to a different organization each quarter. For the last year we’ve been planning a change to the way we distribute the funds. Our vision is to offer a substantial grant each year to a woman of color with an early-stage business (or idea for one) in order to help her grow her revenue and impact her community. We’re still working on the particulars but we plan to announce the first round of applications later this year. Stay tuned!
SS: Is there anything else you’d like to share with TPN readers?
RK: Just that it has been an honor and a privilege to be part of this industry for all these years. All the store owners we work with, as well as all the other wonderful designers and business owners behind the brands we share shelf space with in the shops are just the kindest, most generous bunch of people you could ever want to work with. And we are grateful to you Sarah for keeping us all connected and informed and excited about all things paper!
_________
Thank you so much Rachel for dropping in! From 8/16 through 8/18, Heartell is holding a birthday sale with 30% off its entire site. And for my paper nerd friends in the trade, you can shop Heartell 24/7 on Faire.
