Welcome to the same thunderpeep that now looks even more kickass!

Happy Midsummer! I hope it's nothing but sunshine and warm breezes where you are.

Did you welcome the season of sunshine in last night? Hopefully in Fun Fashion {because really why bother celebrating in a boring way?}

Ok, so let's get down to this rebrand and all these new things that I've been working away on.

When I first stepped back to revisit where thunderpeep was it was really just to refocus on the direction I first set out onto. I had no idea that this period of reflection was going to result in a complete rebrand of the company. And honestly it didn't even become clear until about a month ago when I realized I was heading into a very new direction, and I was SUPER excited about it. So both thunderpeep and I needed a fresh new start.

This is the story of thunderpeeps' fresh start. Fittingly debuting on the Midsummer. Kicking off the launch of the Midsummer collection, which be continually rolling out over the next couple of weeks leading up to the Grand Finale on July 8th. But to be honest I've come to the realization that the rebrand will continue to evolve as the year goes on. By the time we hit winter (sorry but it's going to come eventually) and the Polar Night Collection starts to take shape I think we'll all be happily sitting in the company of a brand new thunderpeep!

My work has always had a pretty strong Scandinavian influence. But I've been struggling with my personal connection to my own country and having moved back closer to where I grew up I found that I was a bit more nostalgic (oh yeah and I turned 40 in there and I think it's a right of passage to start reminiscing about the olden days once you hit your 40's) So I wanted to bring a bit more of my sense of Canadiana into my work, in a way to help ground me back in my own roots. It was a struggle to find that right mix. But then after my epic {disastrous?} camping trip back in May I found it. Being back in the Ontario wilderness that I had grown up adventuring in, remembering those fun times and the era that was my childhood and teenage years, it was pretty much already there. I had already been obsessing with old badges of all sorts, from campgrounds to brownies to travelling and those old amazing designs. All these things were all kind of brewing up a bit storm in my brain. And one of the sketches that I'd had that weekend sort of became a symbol for the rebrand. I find that's the way my creativity works. Things brew and brew and brew and then one day it all makes sense.

This was that image. It has actually ended up on one of the cards, and in the new logo. The colours, the design, the vibe. It was all me. At this moment. It's retro feel, it's warm and natural colours. I've worked a lot in white space so this was a bit of a departure, but it was such a natural transition that I went with it. A lot of this styling was already coming through in the Troll and Midsummer books, I hadn't really realized that this was how I was going to bring it all together. The new work and the existing thunderpeep. Does that even make sense? It does in my head, but so does the fact that Trolls exist.

I posted this image as my personal facebook profile pic. Not because I'm even on facebook that much these days, mostly because I wanted to see how it fit when I put it out to people who knew me. And I was pretty surprised at the reaction. I think part of it was that most of my facebook friends are within my age range, so there's going to be a somewhat nostalgic feeling in all of us, but people somehow connected with it in their own ways and that's what I want from the new direction. For people to connect, in ways that don't have to have anything to do with my connection to it. My connection to nature is well documented here and I hope that I can get more people to reconnect with it and see the value in respecting and working to keeping it safe. It's such a huge part of what it means to be Canadian, no matter whether you live in the big bad city or if the country.

With this new style I started to re-design some of the older cards, and bring in new designs with the new stylings. Moving forward I'll be focusing mainly on everyday cards like Birthdays and Friendships only. Those are the things that are natural to me. I get a lot of requests for wedding pieces, but to be honest doing them with my somewhat sarcastic sense of humour doesn't really work. I'm not really the warm fuzzy mushy type. I'm not going to make warm fuzzy mushy things. That just wouldn't make sense. Although there is one new engagement card in the mix. It's pretty much everything I would say to someone I know who's getting engaged - and have! One person I initially showed it to thought it was mean. I laughed knew it had just earned it's place in the pack (FYI it's no meaner than the divorce card, it's just wasn't fuzzy enough for said individual)

Here are your new thunderpeep friendship cards. The re-design of the BFF card you've seen, but there's also the Friendship Foundation card, and the first breakup card. I mean it doesn't just have to be for a breakup, it's a good piece of advice between friends. This actually came out of a custom request!

There's also all the new birthday cards (buttons aren't included with the cards yet but will be later on this summer)

And lastly in the new card roundup… there's that engagement card.

Eventually almost all cards are going to be getting a re-design to fit in with the new look. All these cards are now available in my Etsy shop! Tomorrow on the blog we'll be looking at all the fun new things in the Society 6 shop. And next weekend we move on to even more exciting new stuff.

And of coarse, along with the new look is the new logo/branding. It's not a massive departure from the old branding, but a definite upgrade. It definitely has the more Canadian feel I was looking for, without straying from simplicity of my other influences. It will actually change it's colours based on the seasons (this is spring/summer so this fall you'll see a whole new colour way for fall/winter to go along with the Polar Nights themes) You'll notice that my social media sites have all been re-branded as well. Because there's technically a whole new logo. Eventually the website will get a makeover but that won't be until later this year. SO many fun new projects are coming that will tie in with the new look (yeah, especially the badge aspect, you know I HAD to find a way to make that happen…)

And finally, because I know you're just dying to know more about the books… They'll officially be launching on July 8th. They are going to press in a little over a week and I'm still putting the finishing touches on it but we have the venue and we have the date. As part of the Danforth Mosaics "The Danny Loves Music" series I'll be hanging out with Crystal in the LEN tent with the books and all the new goodies that go along with it. There'll be great music, fun folks and hopefully nothing but sunshine. And since it's a bit of a long wait for the book, each week between now and then I'll be revealing something new to the collection, exerts from the book and giveaways.

Thanks for tagging along on the journey. Here's to many, many more adventures in our future!

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We all start from somewhere

I've been thinking a lot lately about the direction of both this blog (which actually needs a direction!) and the business. And of coarse myself. So much has changed since I moved back to Toronto, and to be perfectly honest with you, it's not all good. So I took some time to find my direction again, to find myself again, to fall back in love with my life.  This is that story. Not a story about Trolls (I'm sorry but that is coming later), but a story about hitting the pause button and rebranding a life and a business, not in a new direction but in it's proper direction.  (and as I now actually finish I realize how freaking long it is so I've broken it into 3 parts - seriously who knew I had so much to say on the topic)

But before I share the new thunderpeep, you should probably know a bit about how it all started. Let's start with this awesome photo at the top. Because it's a glimpse into the core of this story, the moments in time that brought us to today. This is also a glimpse into one of my truly nerdy habits. I'm a planner. But not a daily schedule kind of planner. I'm a large scale, take over the world kind of planner. Epic plans. Like the journal in the photos.

 Back in 2010 I took, what was then, the trip of my dreams. And I'd planned that trip for a full year, I cut and pasted all these awesome things into my trip journal, that was my intended itinerary all drawn out in red on the map to the left (mother nature and a shut down at Heathrow eventually altered the final trip) The most important part of that journal was the birth of thunderpeep the business. It was one of those brilliant moments while lost in my thoughts, watching the wintery Finnish landscape zoom past me while I traveled by train from Turku and Tampere. I'd only been in the country for about 5 days, but had already been completely inspired by the landscape and the creative culture.

I remember sitting on that train between Turku and Tampere, thinking about all I'd taken in the past 2 days. I found Turku to be one of the most creatively inspiring places I've been. Yes they have a great art gallery there, but it's the creative culture that inspired me. This trip was before Etsy really exploded, so the idea that creative makers could do their own thing and make a living of it was still a pretty foreign concept to me. But in Turku this concept seemed to be thriving. They encourage it, they teach it, it's a part of their long history. A creative business isn't a foreign concept there. We all know and love Marimekko, but in Turku there was a handful of adorable smaller shops along one of the main shopping streets in the downtown that were also 100% Finnish designers. Aarikka and Klo Design were 2 of my absolute favourites. They both embodied that clean, organic and functional Finnish design sense that I loved. And while they are also on the international scene, they are still deeply rooted in their culture, they are still very much Finnish companies, designing and producing in their own country. I was in love with this concept. Of designing, and constructing and creating and bringing it all together under one Canadian roof. They weren't just jewellery shops or bag shops or clothing shops. They were houses of design. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to design around all the weird little stories in my head and make them into something that made your life happier, without a massive imprint on the planet. Just because an item has a function, doesn't mean it has to look boring (you all know IKEA, this is the same concept just way better - sorry IKEA, I do still really like you)

I always loved the scandinavian celebration of Midsummer and the mythology of those long dark polar nights with the aura roaring high overhead. So I built my first thunderpeep collections around those 2 events. Those first 2 illustrations - Midsummer Dreams and The Ice Castle are still pretty popular sellers too. I imagined these 2 collections a year, with illustrations and stories playing out over all sorts of materials. Paper goods were the easiest medium to start with, so there were prints and cards and a wee selection of fabric goodies.

Now, I'm no seamstress. This we know. So that was a struggle. And I didn't have the wonderful QuilterSteff in my life yet. Luckily I eventually discovered silkscreening and great local companies who supplied already sewn bags etc that I could just print on. But the prints and cards really took off. And suddenly the Lordy Lordy Look who's 40 card showed up (that was the very first greeting card I designed solely for the company) and that was a huge seller. So other greeting cards followed, because they were in demand. People thought I was funny and wanted more cards for more occasions. This is awesome, look at me go. I loved typographic arts and I'd worked so long in publication design, making words look pretty so it was a natural progression into greeting cards really. And businesses grow and develop into new things. Right?

At this point I was only selling online, I was missing the shop local component of my first vision. Then a year in my daytime life halted and changed direction as I made the decision to move back to Toronto. Not because I didn't love Vancouver, but I had just lost the job I loved thanks to the crumbling newspaper industry and was motivated to make a go of my business. Toronto seemed like a natural fit. I had grown up here, so already had a built in support system of friends and family. Toronto is a big business city. Toronto is an Arts Loving city. Toronto is where you go to make it. All the things I had run from when I moved out West. But I loved coming back to visit Toronto, it was always so full of life. So vibrant. Instead I found myself in a new city, where my quirky nature loving stories weren't really as relevant. Stories of mountain trolls were received with blank stares and changes in conversations. (I'm not actually kidding, that has actually happened a couple of times)

But those cards with silly and ridiculous sayings. Everyone, everywhere can love them.

You can already see where this story is heading, right?

This move back to Toronto was where I got derailed. And this is where the story may get controversial. If you know me in real life you know I do sit slightly to one side of the whole Vancouver vs. Toronto hate-on. (and if you're reading this from outside of Canada all you need to know is most of Canada has a strong dislike for the country's largest city - Toronto, something you don't realize until you spend time outside of it. Being so far to the West, Vancouver seems to have a particularly strong dislike for Toronto, and the feeling is kind of mutual) Having grown up right outside of Toronto, but living through my most impressionable years out on the West Coast now gives me a slightly different perspective on the world I live in, the people I share it with and the way I chose to live my life. But even that took some time for me to realize as I acclimatized to my new Toronto life. So I will tread delicately in the next chapter of this story….

You can read part 2 here

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