It's rare we get photographed together.

I'm a letterpress printer.
He's a car designer.
I suppose you can call us a creative couple.

This past Valentine's Day Loeffler Randall featured us on their blog as a Creative Couple. I never really thought that we could be packaged together since our disciplines are like a Venn Diagram. Letterpress over here on the left. Industrial Design on the right and our personal lives are the blend of both circles in between.  

I work solo while his work requires an army of creative forces. I work in print and paper while he can observe designs created in VR environments. We're on complete opposites of the design spectrum. Analog here and digital over there. But at the end of the day, I show him prints I'm currently working and he shows me phone pics of automotive related designs his team are working on. We get excited about each other's work.

I was going down memory lane while answering their questionnaire - we built a home together, a process that lasted five years; spent our engagement year living abroad in Germany; I started a small business (woohoo Presshaus LA!) and he's now heading up design at an automotive startup. Although we've been married for 5 years, a period of time that seemingly feels short and long at the same time, we've got a lot under our belts. 

The photos feature not just our story also LR's HEARTLA heart sandals. Although the pictures were taken on a rainy LA day, Nicki Sebastian the photographer behind these images,  did her magic to make these images bright and sunny No rain + puddles shown!

There are more pictures and more questions answered on the LR page. Take a look.

~K

And here are the HEARTLA Loeffler Randall shoes

Bagel, my camera-ready furry girl!

The spread of prints in the studio

Studio moodboard of inspiration + previous print projects

Special thanks to Loeffler Randall + Alex Yeske
All photos by Nicki Sebastian

Thank you, Nicki, for making that rainy day look bright and for your ease of being in front of a camera.

This truly is like the cherry on top! We had no idea we still have a chance to get into Dwell Magazine, the coveted magazine for architecture and design. It's been a few years since our home was completed in August of 2013 and as time passed, we were able to slowly acquire furniture and fixtures we wanted and were able to dial in the house to our liking. Living in the space made us aware of how we were using spaces and how the flow felt as we made it into our home. Our house is like an evolving work in progress always and we haven't even touched the landscaping our outdoor spaces yet.

Our living room in print in Dwell Magazine, Jul/Aug issue

The article talks about our journey of building a custom home during a recession. We started this project while we were still in our late 20s. What were we thinking? At the start we were brimming with ambition but as construction goes we were scraping by after we saw a good chunk of savings poured into concrete and casings. We didn't even have framing to show for yet! We were dragging to the "half a decade saga" as Dwell mentioned and took a year off during that time. During that year, we lived abroad in Munich, Germany. Richard was working on designs BMWi cars, an almost top secret project at the time, and I honed my printing skills in the motherland of printing. The time away from LA helped us to recoup finances and allowed to step away from a project we were deep into. We got married 2 months after moving back to LA and even have wedding photos of us in front of our construction site.

Editorial spread of the article 

While telling our story during the interview for this article, it made me nostalgic. Like any challenge overcome, it's that much sweeter in hindsight. Goodbye to the days of panic floods whenever it rained, frantically getting dressed because of construction workers stomping the grounds at 7:30am, a makeshift kitchen, intermittent periods with no water, annoyed and angry neighbors, endless dust, stressful inspections and stacks of invoices. I can go on and on.

It felt good writing a note to mom to insert into a copy of Dwell then sending it off in the mail. We heard back from her as soon as she got it. 

In case you don't get Dwell in print, the folks over at the magazine were polite to send us a digital version of the article.
Check out the link below to see the article and for more photos.

Special Thank You to
Michael Friberg for the photos and spending the entire day with us from first to last light
Jessica Comingore for house styling the night before until 10:30p
DevCon Construction for building our home and putting up with us
 

Click here for the full PDF of the editorial spread

My beloved friends at Individual Medley, a lifestyle store located just minutes from the studio, spent the afternoon with me to print a run of their hand-carved Thank You card. They watched  the process of letterpress printing from start to finish from cutting paper,  press setup,  inking and proofing.  The block was carved by Annika Bushman exclusively for IM and I was asked to see if it was at all possible to print with it on the press. Of course it will work! It's type high at .918 (nerdy printer talk).

Click below for more images + a Q&A.

Danke schön Monica + Crystal @ Individual Medley and to Stephanie for the amazing photos

I'm hanging up the apron for this and there are no inky finger tips on this post. Letterpress and paper aside, I'm so flattered and honored to be a part of this special collaboration. Jessica Comingore is launching the start of her new shop called The Essentials with this lovely blouse made in collaboration with LA fashion designer Jill Yee. I've seen tidbits of the creative process that went into creating this blouse and have even tried on an early prototypes; I can say it's tough creating a beautiful garment. The cut, the flow and feel of the fabric, the finish of the seams and ends have all been refined by Jill and Jessica together to create this essential blouse.

Big thanks for transforming me into a sophisticated and chic woman for an afternoon.  xo

Here's a video of their collaboration by John Liwag.