BackLounge Loves | Sky Goodies and Paperclouds
Two new DIY stationery brands to have and to fold
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Sky Goodies
Origami has often been endorsed as a stress-relieving pastime but unless you’re a geometry whiz with an extremely dexterous folding technique, you know it’s all one big lie. Whether it’s a 12-step flapping bird or a one-too-many-step modular rhombicuboctahedron—the fun can end with a single wrong crease. But if you’re in the market for a foolproof do-it-yourself (DIY) craft project, look no further than Sky Goodies.
Since meeting Misha Gurnanee Gudibanda and Amit Gudibanda, the husband and wife team behind the brand, at The Lil Flea in Mumbai earlier this month, we have constructed business-card and pen holders that look like a miniature vintage typewriter, a boom box and a hot-air balloon. We completed all these paper products using only a glue stick, and in record time.
The Gudibandas, who have held three exhibitions so far, are graduates of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and run a multidisciplinary design firm called Sky Design in Bandra East. To celebrate their company’s fifth anniversary two years ago, the couple created 3D calendars for their clients that prompted them to launch their own line of stationery and DIY kits on Etsy.com last year.
The preprinted, pre-cut and pre-creased sets were so impressive that we bought almost all the 3D kits on sale at the flea market, including the Masala Chai Kettle and Cups storage box set, the “Goodies Carrier" Truck container and the Mini Suitcase business-card holder. Most products feature truck art graphics and a select few are designed with realistic illustrations of everyday objects like television sets and typewriters. Sky Goodies will launch two-three new products every month and will soon introduce DIY in designs inspired by traditional art forms like Gond and Mithila paintings.
Paperclouds
Paperclouds is another stationery brand we stumbled upon and instantly fell in love with at the StyleCracker Borough shopping event at the Palladium Hotel last weekend. Founded last Diwali by friends Anu Tibrewala and Ambika Kothari, their stationery line includes note cards and envelope sets, file folders, wrapping paper, wine bags and gift boxes featuring minimalistic line drawings and illustrations in pastel colours.
Though Tibrewala and Kothari don’t have a formal background in design, they stick to a broad “less is more" philosophy and incorporate everyday objects into their designs. Their latest collection of envelope sets features intricate motifs in themes like “Ocean", “Birds and the Bees" and “Vintage Motors", made of laser-cut metal. Black and white illustrations of the “bhajjiwala’s plastic woven baskets" make it to gift bags, vintage maps from old atlases are used to make notebook covers and Ikat patterns end up on petite note cards. We especially love their range of stationery for children, which favours hand-drawn illustrations in sober shades over popular cartoon characters in garish colours.
The quality of printing and card stock was impressive—unlike the amateur, home-made stationery generally available at shopping exhibitions and flea markets. As it turns out, Tibrewala’s family runs a printing press, GP Offset Pvt. Ltd, in Mumbai’s Andheri East. Tibrewala and Kothari also accept custom orders for all their paper products.
Sky Goodies DIY toys, storage boxes and photo frames, priced at ₹ 99-199, and DIY calendars, priced at ₹ 399, are available on in.skygoodies.co. Paperclouds products, priced from 200 for notebooks and diaries to 1,000 for letter and envelope sets, may be ordered online.
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