July 2, 2019
Kwohtations is a Brooklyn-based handmade stationery and letterpress studio with a bold mission: to help people feel a bit more seen, more connected, and less alone through great design and accessible products.
As part of their "Other Fun Things" section of their website, they feature stickers as a product for customers to purchase. The clear sticker sheet you see above is a kiss cut style sticker from our product mix.
Clear stickers are just one of our sticker material types, and the kiss cut option is a great choice for this particular product because it will stack and store for easy online inventory fulfillment. Head to the Kwohtations website to check out this sticker and their other fun products they have to offer, from art prints and greeting cards to tote bags and zines.
The top benefit of a sheet is that a designer can create a single sticker full of different designs with individual peel offs. This 5x7 inch sheet has 30 individual peels, with fun phrases like a "Asked For Help" medal and a drawing of two wine glasses clinking. The entire theme of this sticker sheet is "Self care" and since these stickers are clear, they will apply to your planner, cell phone, laptop, or anywhere else for a "little reminder that you're doing okay" and still allow for the surface to show through. Customers can choose from 1, 3, or 10 sticker sheets—that's a lot of self-love going on.
The unique name for this business comes from Janine Kwoh, the owner-artist-assembly line behind the brand. "Kwohtations is an ever-changing collection of greeting cards, art prints, and other curiosities that reflect and celebrate a diversity of identities and life experiences. The key to this brand is that there is always with humor and mirth, two factors that are critical to savoring the good times and surviving the hard ones.
Janine says that Kwohtations is "basically my life in greeting cards, in which I offer up my own truths about navigating love and loss, searching for an authentic voice, (re)defining family and identity and success, bearing witness and figuring out what it means to be responsible for ourselves and others."
Her hope is that others will recognize some of themselves in Kwohtations, and feel a bit more seen, more connected, and less alone. Much of what she creates is about lifting up and embracing that we are all wildly complex and different, and yet at our core are so much of the same - and all of the messiness and beauty and power that comes with holding those two truths together. In other words, this is for all of us who aren’t 100% pulled together, but kind of like it that way.
Kwoh does all of the illustrations and words, and she letterpresses, paints, and packages every single card, one at a time, with love and also a lot of coffee.
Letterpress is a relief-printing technique, where raised type or images are inked and then pressed into paper, creating a debossed impression. Each piece of paper is carefully hand-fed one at a time into the printing press, to create a unique piece of artwork. Janine says she really enjoys the physical process and distinctive final look-and-feel that comes with using old printing machines and techniques, while experimenting with modern (and often irreverent) images and sentiments.
"This sheet is all about taking care of yourself," says Kwoh. "It never hurts to show yourself a little extra care and affection."