Card Designer Spotlight X And Here We Are

The Card Designer Spotlight is a series featuring independent makers whose greeting cards you can find in Paper Source stores. Meet and be inspired by a new designer every month on our blog! 

This month we want to introduce our featured card designer, Meghan Hopkins founder of And Here We Are. Learn how she started in her tiny Brooklyn NY Apartment renting press time at a nearby letterpress studio to a 4,000 square foot warehouse in Worthington, Ohio! 

About Meghan Hopkins 

Meghan Hopkins Sokorai founded And Here We Are in 2012, creating custom wedding invitations in a tiny Brooklyn NY apartment and renting press time at a nearby letterpress studio. In 2015 she relocated to Columbus, Ohio, and bought her first presses (a Vandercook SP-15 and a tabletop C&P). She launched her first line of products at the National Stationery Show in 2017, and later that year moved the studio out of her home; eventually adding 2 Heidelberg Windmills, and several hundred products to the lineup. And Here We Are recently relocated to a 4,000 sq ft warehouse and office space north of Columbus in Worthington, OH. 

How did you begin your card-making career? 

 I came to greeting cards by way of my love of letterpress printing and illustration; when I first left my corporate design career I was doing a lot of custom wedding invitations, and letterpress printing at a shared studio in Brooklyn. When we decided to leave NYC and move back to my home state of Ohio, I bought my first letterpress of my own, which then led to me making my own stuff *just for fun,* which led to selling it at craft fairs, then to slowly picking up some local consignment and wholesale shops, and eventually to exhibiting at my first trade show, the National Stationery Show in 2017. 

Where do you draw inspiration from? 

I draw inspiration from all kinds of everyday stuff. I love travelling, hiking, or visiting art museums for inspiration; but I also just try to be observant of regular life, like silly things my kids say, or a random song lyric on the radio, the colors in a rug. Or sometimes, just working backwards from a new technique I’ve been wanting to play with, like overprinting or die cutting. I basically have about 30 lists on my phone full of random thoughts and ideas that I am constantly adding to, and a couple of times a year I will scroll through these lists and see which ideas float to the top.

What does your day look like as a card maker and designer?  

Our team currently consists of 7 full time members and a handful of part time helpers, so a lot of my day-to-day is spent in meetings, or doing admin, or answering emails; then I try to sneak in some drawings where I can (often at home after the kids go to bed). We recently moved to a new location, and for the first time I have my own office with a door—so I am hoping that I’ll be able to find some more pockets of quiet creative time. I’ve found that besides the obvious loves of drawing and printing, I actually really enjoy looking at our analytics and finding trends, brainstorming new ideas with the team. 

What is your preferred medium?  

Most of our products are letterpress printed, and I like to work with the constraints of the process and then find ways to push or break out of them. Most of my drawings are 2 or 3 ink colors maximum; any extra colors are created by the overlay of the inks on top of one another.  I start with a drawing on my iPad, which I then bring back and forth into Illustrator until I have a final piece. Then, we separate the colors and make plates from the artwork. A lot of final decisions are made when the art goes onto the press, where i might make a last-minute ink change or cut up the plate to rearrange it. 

What are you most proud of as a creator and card maker?   

As a designer & copywriter, I am often the proudest of my weirdest or dumbest ideas, especially when our audience likes them, too. As a printer, I’m proud when a print comes out how I’d envisioned it; like figuring out how to overprint 3 colors of our Reel Good birthday card to make 5.  And as an entrepreneur, I am proud to helm a vibrant and successful business.

Fun Facts about Meghan

Find And Here We Are cards such as Orange Checkerboard Birthday Card and Bottom Of My Heart Thank You Card at your local store or online at papersource.com. For more inspiration and behind-the-scenes action, follow @and_hereweare on IG.