What is Lettering By Skate?

Well if you've made it this far, you must be a little bit intrigued so let me share a bit more about me and the story behind my new business.

Thank You

Firstly - a genuine and heartfelt thank you for stopping by. The internet is full of wonderful businesses and creative people making fantastic things so thank you thank you thank you for taking some time out of your day to check out my website and my blog, I hope you're liking what you've seen so far.

Now down to business! I thought I would be truly unoriginal and make my first blog entry a little intro into the wonder that is Lettering By Skate and a little bit about me. For those that have already read my "About Me" page, worry not, I'm not going to regurgitate the same info. This is the beauty of a blog, it allows me to witter on for that little bit longer...

Why?

Why Lettering By Skate? Why calligraphy? Why weddings?

Well in a nutshell, I love stationery. I love paper, I love pens, I love all the extra bits and pieces that you can incorporate - paperclips, brads, ribbons, clips, washi tape, you name it, I could play with them all day. In one of my many past lives (I've been through a few careers) I worked for my family's business and part of my job was sourcing all of the stationery for the company. It was my absolute favourite thing and the stationery catalogue was definitely up there in my top three books - I'm an avid reader so that's not a statement I make lightly.

Take the stationery fanaticism, add in a heady fondness for creating personalised, handmade cards, prints and other paper based goodness, and combine with a discovery of calligraphy in 2017 and suddenly everything starts falling into place. I realised pretty quickly that calligraphy was the magic ingredient and whilst I'm still working around a 9-5 in financial services, this gives me the perfect creative outlet. It's taken me a while to get a semblance of structure in place, and I couldn't have done it alone. I'll be writing a separate blog post at some point to thank the small army of fellow creatives (and family & friends) who have got me this far, they are plentiful and they have my eternal gratitude.

What?

Everything I create utilises my calligraphy in some way, shape or form, meaning that everything I produce is unique to Lettering By Skate. You may find something similar elsewhere but it won't have my calligraphy on it and that's what makes it special.

There are a number of strands to Lettering By Skate. The first is wedding stationery. I created my first wedding invitation suite twelve years ago for one of my best friends and whilst it was one of the most stressful experiences of my life, it was also joyous and incredibly satisfying. I now create a whole host of items in addition to invitation suites, including wedding signage and on-the-day pieces.

The second strand is bespoke commissions - these can be long or short, big or small, but again, they are all produced using my own calligraphy, either handwritten directly, or handwritten and digitised, depending on the project.

Last but not least, and in a similar strand to weddings, I create event stationery. Now this sounds very grand, but can take many forms; place names for a small family gathering, personalised gift tags for christmas/birthdays, thank you cards after a special event. Given the events of the last year or so, smaller events of all kinds are definitely increasing and one of the benefits of a smaller event is that it can give the opportunity to spend a little more on some special touches.

Hopefully this has all given you a bit more of a flavour of what I'm about. I could have written for another hour or two so I'll be back on here in the not too distant future to talk a bit more about my plans for Lettering By Skate and to share some of my thoughts and wonderments on all things calligraphy related.

I'd love to know what you think of the website and if there's anything I haven't covered, something you'd like more detail on, or you'd like to chat about a particular commission or project please get in touch, I'd love to hear from you!

Take care,

Sarah (Skate) x