2024 has come and gone for a little while by now. We’ve worked hard behind the scenes here at The Stationery Project, and we’d like to share with you bits of what we were up to over the last year.
Starting off strong with a pop-up sale for Valentine’s Day on February 13, 2024, at our usual spot: right in front of ECU Library’s entrance in the Exhibition Commons at Emily Carr! Hosted by Katherine Gillieson and Morgan Martino, the table was a great success. Having hosted sales tables around Valentine’s day in the past, we knew this is a great time to share our work with the community and spread the love of hand-bound stationery. We had some great chats with folks stopping by the table!
Midway through the year and as part of the first Summer Term, Katherine and Morgan ran the first-ever “Stationery Project Creative Lab”, a Special Topics 3rd-year course in which we brought our findings and practices to undergraduate students in Communication Design. The class was a journey of learning for all—we had students work on projects developing different paper-based stationery products using recouped materials found all over ECU. We went through every step together—from sketching and prototyping, to user testing, to production, to so much more.
Summer Class with Neal Haslem
Summer Class with Sophie Gaur
The Creative Lab course ended with a bang, as we worked together with the students to put up an exhibition in the library that ran from June 18, 2018. Groups of students worked together for their final project to ideate, test and create production-quality prototypes of different paper stationery set products and concepts. They also got to share examples of their products with each other, a definite highlight of the class. When asked about her experience, Fatemeh Pourseyed replied: “As someone who just started her path in sustainable design, this class offered a friendly and creative environment that felt very supportive. I learned many skills that I still use to this day, like binding, different types of folding and using different tools in the studio. Moreover, it gave me the courage to try, to trust myself, and to explore ways of using things around me. I am so grateful for this creative opportunity that focused on using what we have instead of buying more “stuff.” I greatly appreciate making and craft and its relationship to design and this class did too!” Look out for our post about last year’s course coming up soon!
Exhibition
Afterwards, we had quite a few pop up sales nearing the end of the year. Hosted by Katherine, Morgan, and Abi Simatupang, the team set up in front of the library on November 1, 2024, for our “Haunted Warehouse Sale”, marking the spooky middle of Fall term. Abi made some ghostly ghastly designs to promote the event, and we had folks coming in buying our stocks from previous productions, including some funky experimental ones.
Near the festive season, on November 29 and December 17, 2024, we ran our yearly “Gifting Seasons” sales! We had tables set up once more in front of the library, and sold many paper products: jumbo pads, journals, and gift bundles! Perfect as presents for loved ones. We also developed and sold mini 2025 calendars, with teal riso printed on brown and beige-coloured cardstock.
Festive sales
We also had a table set up for Jules-Verne Winter Market, on December 5, 2024. We were able to meet with a lot of great folks, helping them with gifts for themselves or their loved ones–it was a great way to end such an eventful year for the team.
So, what’s in store for TSP? Our team has once again grown quite a bit this year, and we’ve had an exciting first-half of 2025. Ran by Brendan Denesiuk and Morgan, “The Occasional Club” is a biweekly event where we showcase different collections and archives of design artefacts from the past to the now, following themes such as children’s books, food and cooking, science, and so on. In other words: a show-and-tell from a bunch of designer’s geeky collections, and a fun time to meet and talk with old and new friends! We’ve had amazing guests come in to share with us their collections too; Brendan Tang showed his games galore during our “Vintage Games and Objects of Play” theme, while Liyang Zha showed us Chinese typography books, among many other cool trinkets. See our post: The Occasional Club: for enthusiasts of ephemera and collections! to read all about this series of events.
And going into summer, we’re diving headfirst into more experimentations, triaging, and production of different books and paper materials! Keep a close eye on our socials for more updates on that.