ANALOG: Most of my designs begin with pencil and paper. I love simple/cheap mechanical pencils because they have a fine stroke with light grip and have really great erasers. I absolutely love my Canson Mix Media sketchbooks because they have an amazing grip for both pencil and paper (I’m all about that grip) along with a perforated edge so I can tear pages out for scanning. I typically use Sakura Micron 01 / 03 / 05 pens to do my final inking, but depending on the piece I might use a brush pen like the Pentel Sign Pen or even a Sharpie.

DIGITAL: I have recently added Procreate along with the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to my design arsenal. I also use Adobe Create Cloud (Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign) along with a Wacom tablet to digitize hand-drawn sketches.

It’s kind of a long story. There were a lot of years spent trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Several degrees were earned, several careers were explored. To sum it up, after a good bit of time spent floundering (at least that’s what it felt like) God opened the door so that I could follow my gut and venture into graphic design. So, I worked full-time in a job that I dreaded every single morning while also going to design school full-time. It was tough, but...man, SO worth it. During and after earning my degree in Graphic Communications I was hired as an in-house designer where I worked until getting married and moving out of state. That was when Kat French Design began as a freelance design business offering print and identity design to small companies and non-profit organizations.

After 5 years (and 1 toddler later) in freelance I needed to shift the direction of my business to stay flexible for my family and my son who started giving up his naps (ugh). I felt ready to begin designing products from a more personal viewpoint and that fueled me to open my Etsy shop in the fall of 2014. Within a year I began focusing on greeting card and other paper goods design.

In retrospect, it seems like I should have figured it out sooner since I had loved art since childhood and had made my own cards for years, but if it hadn’t been for all of those rough years trying to figure out my path and then working to hone my skills while serving other clients, I don’t think I would have the perspective that I do now. I can’t imagine it going another way and now I look forward to the future of my little business.

Dogs. Big ones.