Once, long ago, she worked at a certain organic market and was thunderstruck by the beauty of the packaging and typography of certain imported bath products — she went to art school very soon after.
Her parents are leatherworkers. Her childhood home in northwestern Massachusetts was like an informal retreat for artists, craftspeople, lots of animals and big beautiful gardens.
She has always loved the typeface Mrs. Eaves, madly and unapologetically.
It is very likely that she made the skirt she is wearing right now.
When she lived in Brooklyn, she started a design studio called Lucky Tangerine, which used birds and paper lanterns on a wire in silhouette as the global navigation. This was well before Brooklyn, Lucky Peach, and birds in any form were hip.
Her work has won awards from people who know about such things (Communication Arts, Graphis, Print magazine, Type Directors Club, and the Society of Publication Designers).
She co-founded a company with two very talented friends called Relish&Co. which is dedicated to their love of food, beauty and cooking. You should check it out.
She believes that less, almost always, in design as in life, is more.
She has designed logos for boutiques in Brooklyn and Portland, ME, a performance troupe, an animal hospital, a popcorn cart, a northern Indian take-out place, a plethora of publications, cookbooks, book covers and whiskey labels and packaging.
She has designed books about cooking for men and boys (Mad Hungry), cooking for Southern gatherings (Summerland), cooking with pigs (The Whole Hog Cookbook), cooking with chocolate (Mast Brothers Chocolate, Chocolate Alchemy and There's Always Room for Chocolate), baking with an attitude (Sweet + Vicious), baking with Sourdough (Sourdough), a TIKI Cocktail book (TIKI), a book about home design for domino magazine and a biannual magazine for Making.
Two of the cookbooks she designed in 2015 have been nominated for James Beard Awards— Heartlandia: Heritage Recipes from Portland's The Country Cat and Sourdough. Sourdough was a cookbook award winner in 2016!
She established the visual concept and handled all the art direction and design for the original year of Maine magazine.
Best concert she saw recently: Dr. Dog or SPOON.
The New York Times called The Whole Hog Cookbook “aggressively pretty.”
Epicurious named eight titles as “The Best Cookbooks of 2013” and she designed two of them — Summerland and Mast Brothers Chocolate: A Family Cookbook.
The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) named Summerland a finalist in the global design category.
Most of the art on the walls of her home (which is also her studio), in the midcoast of Maine, is made by friends.
In the world there is a certain degree of complexity and chaos and over-saturation. To bring clarity and beauty and style (or attitude, or humanity) into some small corner of it is a personal and social project worth giving your life to.