Paper Runway Guest Post - Naomi Shiek

Today in my guest post for Paper Runway I talk about the papercuts created by Naomi Shiek.

Click here to read more.

Monday Morning - Shop Update!

Good Morning!

Just a quick update this morning to let you know that the Mr Yen Christmas cards are now available for purchase - perfect if you need to send your Christmas cards out early. Also, the existing Mr Yen hand cut cards are now available with a lovely red insert, just for the festive season!

I hope you have a great productive Monday! See you back here tomorrow for an Inspiration Tuesday post where I will be talking about visual thinking.

Monday Morning - M.Y Papercut Collection

Good Morning! 

This morning I thought I would introduce my new customisable silhouette design (if you haven't seen it yet) that is the first of many in my new collection I am calling M.Y Papercuts (It was also recently featured here on Design*Sponge - thanks Grace!)

Below I have explained the collection and included images of an example. You can get your very own framed personalised botanical silhouette here in the Mr Yen shop if you're interested!

NEW Papercut Collection: M.Y Papercuts

What is M.Y Papercuts?
It's a new collection of customisable papercuts, made specifically for each individual that purchases them!

Where does the M.Y come from?
M.Y is the initials of Mr Yen, but I also want it to imply that these papercuts in the collection are just for you - so when someone asks what it is you can say it's MY papercut!


The range will develop to include the possibility of adding dates and text, plus there will be a variety of sizes and framing options. If you have any questions I would be happy to answer them, so just leave them in the comments below - and as this collection is going to be a large part of what I want to do, I have created a specific section for it here on the blog.

WIP Wednesday

Hello!

For today's WIP Wednesday I thought it would be a nice idea to show you what I managed to get done on the laser cutting machine last week at Duke Studios (thanks James and Laura!)

I designed this piece the week before to test out using the laser cutting machine and while I was testing it out on paper, I used elements of the design on acrylic and leather too. Playing around with this machine and different materials gives me so many ideas for products....I think the acrylic would make great coasters and the leather would make great bookmarks!

While I was getting my test pieces cut, here's what I was given by Duke Studios - two small lasercut Duke logos. Don't they look great?! - I love the detail and the depth you can achieve with the laser cutter!

WIP Wednesday

For todays WIP Wednesday post I've been working on creating a papercut design to be lasercut at Duke Studios - who I will post more about early next week. This will be the first of my designs that I will try out on a laser cutting machine, so I hope it works out and that I've done it right!

This design is made up of several leaves in a circular shape, with extra dots and spots added in between the leaves. As this is the first time I have created something for a lasercutter I don't know if this is too detailed or if little bits will get cut off, but I will let you know how it works out....now, it's time to finish it off and I will upload photos of it as soon as it's been cut out.

The Mr Yen Catalogue 2011

I have been working on getting together a Mr Yen Catalogue for my products for 2011 and have finally finished it! You can view it below...I would love to know what you think!

I will also be producing a Christmas Catalogue and Christmas Look Book so keep an eye out for those nearer the time!

Monday Morning

This morning I will be taking photos of the Mr Yen Stationery, last week I started to take new photos of my papercuts and all because I feel the black and white images are confusing for people. I've been asked several times to see the images in colour - even though all my items and props are black and white, so I decided to introduce some colour to make things a little clearer. The shop should have a brand new look by the end of the week!

While I'm on the subject of stationery, I thought I would let you know that until the end of August you can get 10% off your whole Mr Yen Stationery order! - just use the code AUGUSTSTATIONERY2011 as a coupon code at checkout.

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I have also listed the first of my Recycled & Rescued framed papercut off cut pieces, listed here - the first design using some off cut feathers from my other papercuts. These will all be framed and will all be different - with each framed piece being one of a kind (you can see the first one above) Once this one is gone, there will be no others exactly like it, but there will be more framed feathers (just of different feathers and compositions)

The frames I've used sandwich the feathers between two pieces of acrylic and are held together by steel screws. The steel screws and 'feet' can be unscrewed to rearrange the composition too, so you can have them anyway you want!

I hope you have a productive Monday and I will see you back here tomorrow for an Inspiration Tuesday Post!

Monday Morning - New Photographs!

Good Morning!

This weekend I found this piece of wood with some great typography on it and it inspired me to take some experimental new product photos. I've also included a sneaky look at a new framed design that will be available later this week in the Mr Yen shop. 

These new framed pieces (shown in the first image) will be made up from the offcuts of this papercut and will be the first Mr Yen papercuts to be sold as framed!

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This week I'm completing one of my #SixMonthPlan goals too - I'm am working on finishing a wholesale order for my first stockist outside the UK! I will reveal who/where later in the week once the order is complete and shipped out, but I'm quite excited to have my work stocked there!

Hope you have a productive day and I will see you back here tomorrow for an Inspiration Tuesday post!

weekend goodness

This weekend I had a little experiment with tiny papercut offcuts, from my customisable name and date papercuts, in a magnetic acrylic frame. I will take some better photos through the week so you can see the frame clearer.

What do you think?

Monday Morning - Papercuts on Display

Hello - I hope you had a good weekend!

The past week I have been working on some orders for my stockists, while looking for more stockists - which has led to me thinking about how customisable papercuts can be stocked in shops. I thought it would be a good idea to have an example papercut, with some information about how I create customised pieces and what is available so I came up with the following setup...

I used an acrylic frame to display the papercut and a small piece of bent acrylic that holds the signage and information - I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner! I have contacted a few interesting places to stock my work and now I'm just waiting to hear back so things can be taken further!

In other news, I mentioned on twitter last week that I would like to write a blog post about "The Truth about Selling Handmade" well, what I have experienced and know from my first year of creating/designing on a freelance basis anyway. Now, this topic is really important to me and I don't want to rush it and then feel like I should change bits later, so I will be working on this all week and it should be up by Friday - I hope you will find it just as interesting and as helpful as I do!

Hope you have a nice productive Monday Morning!

WIP Wednesday

This week I have been working on the Mr Yen Catalogue for 2011 and starting to get some ideas down for a promotional mail out to send to design agencies/companies and illustration agents looking for freelance design work for now until Christmas.

If you would like to stock Mr Yen products you can get in touch here and I will send you the finished catalogue....below you can see a few example spreads...

See you back here tomorrow for a Thursday Finds post!

WIP Wednesday

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you will know that I have been working on a detailed, large scale papercut quote by Doctor Seuss that reads "Today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so get on your way". I documented the whole process of this papercut - from initial hand drawn idea, down to final finished piece - with all the bits in between being photographed too. You can see a few images from the process below (in reverse order), but if you would like to see more you can see all the photos here.

I would also like to say a special thank you to all the people who commented on both Facebook & Twitter and for all the re-tweets and mentions too! - especially Isa of Noisette Marketing who has mentioned my work quite a lot recently, (with a mention of this papercut project here) it's very much appreciated! You should all go check out the Noisette Marketing blog 'The Academy' here, it's full of great tips and advice!

This papercut is limited to an edition of only 10 ever being made and all 10 are only available here.

Oh and I have updated my 'About me' section on the Mr Yen Website, so if you would like to get to know me better, just click this link and have a little read!

A Quick little update...

Hello! I hope you're all enjoying a day off work for the Royal wedding today if you are in the UK.

It seems a bit out of the blue, but I have been thinking recently about what my title and direction is with my artwork & designs...

Designer...Artist...Maker?

I am comfortable with all the above titles and roles but haven't really embraced any of them fully. I feel as though I have only focused on the maker side, with a few hints at the design side of my work, so now I would like to delve into the art side of my work.

What Direction?

I would love to create some larger scale papercut pieces that are very limited edition or one offs & I have wanted to make make more art type pieces for a while, but always felt as though art ensured less income than design, which I don't think is necessarily true as pricing is so different due to the nature of one off pieces of artwork.

Designer?

I still love design and would love to get more work with big clients (like I did here with Lynx) it is just a matter of creating more commercially viable work that could be used in things such as ad campaigns like this one that I love! (by Kate Forrester) and getting it seen by the right people.

Artist?

I feel I have potential to create larger art pieces as I would love to spend a long time focused on one giant, detailed papercut piece, plus I feel as though this would also generate more income, because lets be honest that is important too! I have to remind myself that this is a business sometimes as it feels great to be working daily on things that I love, which never feels like work!

Whats Next?

I will be starting the new project I mentioned here on Monday, I will be sending out the second Mr Yen newsletter on May 1st and I will be keeping my shops open and running (Big Cartel, Etsy, NOTHS) while starting work on some designs for a large on off papercut. I am also starting to design things for events later in the year, such as Christmas products for the shop - more on this later next week! (Yes Christmas already!)

New Project!

I've been planning and plotting how to go about a new project recently and have decided to just go ahead and start by trying to explain it. This is quite a lengthy post and I will be very impressed if you read it all!

The Idea:

I am planning to create 30 floral/botanical papercuts, which I will photograph and use to create a small publication. I will be documenting the entire process of this project, from initial research to the final document - making the process just as important as the final result.

The thing is though...I always put off starting things until I know every little detail is planned out, which I know always gets in my way of just getting on with things - kind of like making excuses to start incase it doesn't work out.

Well, I thought it would be interesting for you all to see the processes I use and go through...for you to see both the good & the bad...the ups & the downs...the success & failures and go along with me on this new journey creating my first little book of papercuts!

I want to work ways into this project where you can be involved too, as there are so many amazing creative people out there (yes you!) I would love for you to be able to get involved!

For this project I will be sharing everything - from initial research, sections of my sketchbook, sharing some great links to resources, updates of the design and layout of the book, the book being printed and everything else right down to organising photo shoots and finding shops & companies to sell my book & papercuts.

I hope you will accompany me on this journey and find it as interesting and fulfilling as I hope it will be!

First things first though....I need a name for this project and would love to hear any suggestions you have?

(P.S If you made it this far, thanks it means a lot!)

Mr Yen & Design For Mankind

A quick little update of something I forgot to mention earlier.....Mr Yen is now an official Sponsor of Design For Mankind!

Why not head on over to visit Erin and say hello from me!