Anna Bond
Rifle Paper Co
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About Anna
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Anna Bond of Rifle Paper Co .,
RIFLE PAPER CO. ANNA BOND
THE EVERYGIRL MARY MULLEN
12 The Rise of Rifle Paper Co
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the Most Popular Stationer on the Internet
VANITY FAIR ALE X BEG GS
16 A Day in the Life of Anna Bond of Rifle Paper Co .
DESIGN SPONGE GRACE BONNEY
RIFLE PAPER CO.
ANNA BOND
About Anna
ANNA BOND
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Anna Bond is co-founder and CCO of Rifle Paper Co., an international stationery and lifestyle brand with offices in Winter Park, Florida and New York City. Originally from Summit, New Jersey, Anna trained as a graphic designer and made her way to Florida to work as a senior art director at a media company at age 21. After a year of working in print design she left to pursue her passion in illustration. A number of gig posters and freelance work later, she rediscovered her lifelong love of stationery through wedding invitation design and the idea for a stationery collection was born.
Together with her husband Nathan, Anna launched Rifle Paper Co. based out of their apartment in November 2009 and the brand has quickly grown to become of the most notable brands in the industry. Every one of Rifle’s over 900 products are designed by Anna and feature her signature handpainted illustrations, vibrant color palette, and whimsical tone which has helped propel the brand’s success. Rifle Paper Co. now employs over 200 people and is carried in over 5,000 stores around the world including Anthropologie, MoMA and Barnes & Noble. In Spring 2014, she launched the highly-anticipated stationery collaboration with noted fashion blogger and illustrator Garance Doré. In addition, Anna has worked on illustration projects with clients such as Puffin Books, InStyle Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Lucky, and Martha Stewart Living among numerous others.
ABOUT ANNA
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designing wedding invitations was the spark that ignited Anna’s successful company and career
Anna Bond of Rifle Paper Co ., THE EVERYGIRL
ANNA BOND
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Anna Bond, the creative director, illustrator, designer, and co-owner of Rifle Paper Co., jumped into the world of paper goods in 2009 with a vision to create playful, vintageinspired products. With her husband and business partner, Nathan, by her side, Anna has painted her way onto the blank canvas that is stationery. Anna’s hand-painted illustrations, strong attention to detail, and whimsical approach to her designs set Rifle Paper Co. apart from many others in the business. After setting up an online shop of their goods including custom wedding invitations, thank you notes, journals, and cards, popular companies from around the country approached Anna and Nathan about carrying their products in stores. Anthropologie (an Everygirl favorite) was one of those brands that reached out to them, and soon became Rifle Paper Co.’s first account. Not too shabby, if you ask us! With the opening of Rifle Paper Co.’s studio in Anna and Nathan’s hometown of Winter Park, Florida came a full-staff, even more large clients, and national recognition. Anna’s colorful invitations and illustrations have been featured in publications such as Martha Stewart Living, O The Oprah Magazine, Southern Living, InStyle, Lucky, and Real Simple Wedding. Today, Anna shares with us how all of her success came to be, when she discovered her passion for stationery, and how she and Nathan balance their work and personal lives together. But enough from us, the effortlessly charming Anna will take it from here…
MARY MULLEN
AN INTERVIEW WITH ANNA BOND How did you discover your passion for paper goods design and illustration?
Does what you studied in school apply to your current job? If not, where did you learn the skills you use at work? I did go to school for design but I think that most of my knowledge came from experience and fellow designers. I was hired as an art director at a magazine right out of school and I had no idea what I was doing. I hadn’t even had a class on the program I was expected to use the most. But there I was in the midst of an incredibly demanding environment, and I was determined to learn and succeed. As a result, I probably learned more during my first 2 months on the job than in all of my schooling. That, to me, was the best learning experience and prepared me for eventually going out on my own and starting a company.
5 THE INTERVIEW
I grew up loving painting and art and then I studied graphic design in school. I immediately began experimenting how to combine my handpainted illustrations with traditional design. Stationery and paper goods were also something I loved when I was little. I always used to make my own cards and collected stamps. Eventually, I realized stationery design was the perfect mix of graphic design and illustration that I was looking for and I fell in love.
Anna and her husband Nathan
What is the best part of your job? What is the most challenging part?
ANNA BOND
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The best part is that I own the company. I get to say yes or no to opportunities, direct the company in a way that I think is best, and have creative control over my work. The most challenging part of running a business for us has been manufacturing and finding the right people to work with. We want to partner with people who share our quality standards and understand our vision. There have been a lot of headaches but every one of them has taught us a valuable lesson. Can you describe a little bit about what goes into your position? What is your day-to-day work life like? The company has evolved from Nathan and I working in our apartment to a full staff, and because of that I’ve had a lot of different roles (and still do). My main job is to design our product line and act as creative director to the company. My day-to-day can vary a lot, but on most days I’m working on new product designs, wedding & personalized stationery orders, art directing our designers, and meeting with Nathan about the business. I usually get into the office about noon and often don’t leave until as late as 2 or 3 in the morning. It’s demanding, but I love it.
Please describe the process of starting Rifle Paper Co. What were you doing before you started the company? What led to taking the leap into the entrepreneurial world?
After you decided to start your business, what was the first step you took to make it a reality? I don’t feel like we had everything mapped out with very planned steps. We really had nothing to lose (neither of us had typical day jobs) and were fearless (maybe slightly naive?) in the beginning. We just sort of went for it. I designed the products, we had them printed locally, designed an online store, and then launched. There were about a 1,000 problems mixed in there that we had to overcome, but somehow it worked out and people responded to the line in an incredibly positive way. That gave us the confidence to keep pushing forward.
7 THE INTERVIEW
map illustration of Florida, one of the homes of Rifle Paper Co.
“ It ’ s demanding , but I love it .”
I was working as a freelance illustrator for a couple years before realizing that I wanted to focus on stationery design. Nathan was in a band, and I would design show posters for him, as well as for a few clubs in town. I was having fun and developing my personal style but also knew that I wasn’t focused on something I truly loved. A close friend asked me to design her wedding invitations, and everything just clicked. I’d loved graphic design and illustration on their own, but I immediately saw that stationery was the best combination of the two. I was already working on my own—it just made sense to try to develop a line and start a company. I posted a few wedding sets online, and blogs immediately began featuring them. From there things were a bit of a whirlwind, and a year after designing my first wedding set we launched Rifle Paper Co.
How did you learn the ins and outs of running a business, i.e. getting investors, finding manufacturers, writing contracts, pricing products, etc.?
ANNA BOND
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I would say that most of what we learned about running a business has been through trial and error, Google searches, and asking questions to other business owners. For every problem that arose, we worked until we found an answer. Neither of us have a background in business, but we’re hard workers, extremely resourceful, and stubborn about giving up. We also balance each other out very well. Nathan took to handling manufacturing and pricing, while I started focusing on marketing and planning big picture steps. We divided up business tasks and figured things out as we went along. How did you go about expanding from just an online shop to having your products placed in stores? Soon after we launched, we started getting requests from stores that wanted to carry our line. Anthropologie was one of them, and they ended up being our very first account (a dream come true for me). We were slow to pick up more stores until the following spring at the National Stationery Show in New York (the stationery industry’s trade show for buyers). The trade shows are the biggest way we pick up new stores, but we also get direct requests and work with reps throughout the country who help find stores that would be a good fit for us.
Rifle Paper Co. x Hygge & West Wallpaper
How did you market your company when you were just starting out? We’ve never done any advertising, and our biggest marketing has been through blogs and press writing about our products. I had a blog and was using social media when we launched, and I also think that helped gain a loyal following before we even had one thing for sale. What advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs?
What is the most important thing you have learned since starting and running your own successful business? The most important thing I’ve learned is that I love what I do and have to continue to love it. Unless that’s what I truly believe, all of the hard work, long nights, and stressful days wouldn’t be worth it. At the end of the day, I’m proud of the products we’re producing and the way we run our business.
“ Be fearless and flexible .”
9 THE INTERVIEW
Be fearless and flexible. There have been so many times where we’ve had to adapt and change plans, whether it’s good or bad. We always try to have an open mind about opportunities and the need to edit what we’re doing for the best interest of the company. It’s also so important to be fearless. Running a business can be scary, hard, and a lot of work, but unless you fully dive in, you’ll never know if it will work out. You can’t be afraid to fail or make mistakes sometimes.
How would you still like to see the company evolve, if at all, in the next year? We have lots of plans to grow and evolve over the next couple of years. We want to expand the products that we offer and possibly develop new lines. Our first big project is to launch our new wedding & event collection, which I’m extremely excited about. Best moment of your career so far?
ANNA BOND
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It’s not one moment, but what means the most to me is when customers get so excited about our products. I’m trying to create things that I love and always hope that other people will feel the same way. With a consumer product business, it means the world to see loyal customers respond positively to the line and really get behind what we’re doing. What advice would you give your 23-yearold self? I would tell myself that I’m capable of doing something great. At 23, I was still pretty timid about what I could do and how far I could push myself. I don’t think many people who knew me would have thought I’d run a successful business. I knew deep down how determined I was and should have felt more confident to tap into that sooner.
THE INTERVIEW
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Rifle Paper Co. x L’Occitane
“ We have lots of plans to grow and evolve ...”
The Rise of Rifle Paper Co .,
the Most Popular Stationer on the Internet VANITY FAIR ALE X BEG GS
It all started with an iPhone case. Sold at Anthropologie, the perpetually candle-scented oasis for all things flowy, floral, and flouncy, it was also floral, but not in an old-bedspread kind of way. Instead it was hand-painted in a vintage style (ding ding ding!), simple and adorable, for around a mere $20, and soon to be everywhere you looked. It was probably the most savvy decision Anna Bond ever made, to launch her paper-stationery company with a totem of digital life: What does your iPhone case say about you?
ANNA BOND
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Anthropologie was Rifle Paper Co.’s first client, and they came calling early—too early. Bond was in her earlier 20s when she started Rifle in 2009 with her husband, Nathan, in their Winter Park, Florida, home. She was freelance illustrating, designing a lot of posters for Nathan’s pop-rock-bluegrass band, playing with her style and trying to “really figure out what my voice was, and not look like anybody else,” she said. Huge success came from designing personalized wedding invitations that wedding blogs went nuts for. She did a few friends’ invitations, but her own, for her mariachi-themed wedding, featured a little cartoon version of herself and Nathan, and that’s what people wanted: little thems. Instead of going to Etsy, which hosts anything from your aunt’s knitted cat portraits to $50 ceramic espresso cups handmade in Italy, they launched their own Web site, a confident move, but a glitchy one. “We probably made every single mistake we could make,” Bond told us. They made Anthropologie wait six months while they figured out how to produce wholesale for such a mammoth company, but it was worth it. And if you’ve stepped in the store (or Web site) in the past year, they’re still selling greeting cards, calendars, recipe cards, and iPhone cases—updated for every new version plus the Pluses, Galaxies, and now available with clear backgrounds to see through to your rose gold.
1. Alice in Wonderland 150th-anniversary edition
2. Rifle Paper Co. x Birchbox Cosmetics
“Anna has created a world of Rifle in the way Wes Anderson has created a world of Wes Anderson,” said James Hirschfeld, the cofounder of Paperless Post, which launches a collaboration with Rifle Paper Co. this week, and just in time for the holidays. “It’s not about paper or non-paper,” he said, “it’s about creating this look that consumers connect to.” The two companies are the perfect fit, he said, because they can take Rifle’s custom invitations and make them even more customizable and affordable through their digital offerings.
13 THE RISE
Rifle took off right as design blogs—and the obsession with having a perfectly “curated” life—did. Think : gallery walls, artfully amiss flower arrangements, food on marble backdrops, packing photos, messy tablescapes taken from above. New Yorkmagazine’s The Cut started a blog series called, “I Like This Bitch’s Life,” that both parodies the beyond-perfect aspirations these bloggers and Instagram stars create, but also admits they still can’t resist it. That’s how you feel when you peruse Anna Bond’s Instagram, which is a mix of Rifle products in the making, baby-bump selfies, glimpses of her closet, and beautiful places you want to be at, too. You follow Bond through every phase in a project—early drafts of her sketches for an illustrated 150th-anniversary edition of Alice in Wonderland� until the final book appears, the stages of her nursery coming together, sneak peeks of collaborations with Birchbox�, dresses with Paper Crown� (that were so in demand the site crashed), backpacks with LeSportsac⁴. Comments are a mix of glowing love and “Where is that amazing lamp from?”
If 2015 was Rifle’s biggest year yet—plus Anna and Nathan’s first baby!—2016 is only looking bigger. Those iPhone cases we mentioned earlier? Now they sell over 2,500 a month. In 2010 the company sold approximately 200,000 greeting cards, and in 2014, 2.8 million. The team has since expanded beyond just Anna and Nathan to 185 employees.
ANNA BOND
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“We see ourselves as more of a lifestyle brand,” said Bond, referring to perhaps another foray into apparel. “I’ve always thought it would be so fun to put our patterns on clothes. It’s been fun for our customers too, to have the artwork in such a different way.” That’s a longer-term experiment, she added, hinting at more home gifts and décor to come in the new year, starting with candles that she’s still sniffing out, quite literally. “I’ve been so picky about them. I don’t know if being pregnant even affected it,” she said, laughing. “It’s really important, and in every collaboration and product, it’s about the design, and it’s about the quality. We’re not just going to slap our art on any old candle that doesn’t smell good. I want every aspect to be amazing.”
4. Rifle Paper Co. x LeSportsac
3. Rifle Paper Co. x Paper Crown
THE RISE
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A Day in the Life of Anna Bond .,
of Rifle Paper Co . DESIGN SPONGE GRACE BONNEY
ANNA BOND
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I was not at all surprised to discover that a typical day in the life of Anna Bond starts early and ends early the next morning. In the past few years, Anna has taken her company, Rifle Paper Co., from a onewoman show to a thriving multi-person team that designs not just stationery but all sorts of paper goods, kitchen designs, phone cases, a collaboration with Garance Dore and a soon-to-be-launched wallpaper collection with Hygge & West. Along with her husband and business partner, Nathan, Anna is constantly working, designing and meeting with her team to oversee their latest product release. What I loved most about getting a peek inside her busy day wasn’t just a renewed appreciation for all of the work that goes into a design company, but getting to see that Anna still devotes a huge part of her day to painting and creating. She has to stay up pretty late (early?) to find time for it, but she makes the time nonetheless. Thanks so much to Anna and everyone at Rifle for taking the time to share a peek inside her busy day. xo, grace
Anna in her office
9 30am
waking up
1 0 am
getting ready
1 1 am
coffee run
11 30 a m
arriving to the studio
I went to bed at 4am the night before and I’m woken up at 9:30 to respond to text messages from my designer Joanna who is on press with our printer. We text back and forth to approve colors for a run of greeting cards.
17 THE EVERYDAY
After dozing in and out of sleepy texts I am up and getting ready for the day.
By 11am I’m rushing out the door to make a meeting so I sacrifice my intended trip to the local coffee shop. Instead, I swing by my neighborhood Starbucks where my favorite barista Mike chats with me for a few minutes about Rifle and an update on his job search.
I arrive at the studio to find our meeting is delayed so I check emails and wrap my head around the day’s tasks.
1 2 pm 1 30 pm
wallpaper review
2 pm
website meeting
3 30 – 6 pm
ANNA BOND
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creative team
wallpaper reviews and meetings
I pass off a few urgent tasks to the creative team, touch base with Carrie (my Director of Creative Development), and prep for a phone call at 1pm about an upcoming design collaboration.
We’ve just received new wallpaper samples for our upcoming collection with Hygge & West and I take time to review colors.
We finally have our meeting with our web designer Mike where we go over what still needs to get done before the launch. The new site has been in the works for a long time and we’re trying to wrap up every little detail in order to (hopefully) go live next week (everyone crosses fingers and knocks on wood).
I review our wallpaper samples in depth with my designer Erica and we decide which to approve and which ones need tweaks. I then have a performance review and creative team meeting (today is full of meetings!) where we talk about what projects are on the horizon and preparations for the National Stationery Show in May.
6 pm
weekend to-do list
7 30 pm
meeting with Nathan
9 pm
dinner
10 30 pm
painting
I make final rounds to the creative team to review some of the day’s tasks and then go over my to do list with Carrie. We discuss emails, make decisions and talk about how to make packaging better on a few products. I realize I have a crazy amount of work for the weekend.
Nathan, Mike and I all realize we’re starving beasts because none of us have stopped working all day to eat (other than the donuts someone brought to the office) and after a lengthy debate on which local Thai place is best my pick wins and we eat until we stuff ourselves.
I head home, change into something comfortable, pour a glass of wine and start painting. This is the first moment I have gotten all day to get to what I really need to do. I plan to paint until around 4am as I work on new products for the Stationery Show.
19 THE EVERYDAY
Most of the office is gone by now and I get a chance to work on a few of my own design tasks. I also meet with Nathan (my husband and business partner) and Mike about website changes and plans. We talk through issues and tasks that we’ll be working on over the weekend and into next week.
Colophon
Anna Bond · Rifle Paper Co. is a single publication designed by Christine Fwu. The views in this book do not reflect those of the designer, publisher, or Emily Carr University. © 2018 all rights reserved. The images and copy in this publication belong to the sources listed below. No part of this book should be reproduced without the written permission of the designer and the publisher. Editing & Design: Christine Fwu Images & Illustrations: © 2008–2018 Rifle, Inc. “Rifle Paper Co.” – Google Images “Rifle Paper Co.” – Pinterest Copy: © 2008–2016 Rifle Inc., Anna Bond © 2018 Condé Nast. Vanity Fair. Article by Alex Beggs © 2018 The Everygirl Media Group, LLC. Article by Mary Mullen © Design*Sponge LLC, 2007-2018. Article by Grace Bonney Printed at the DOC of Emily Carr University. Typefaces used in this publication are: Stay Fresh – designed by BLKBK Utopia – designed by Robert Slimbach, released by Adobe Systems