Inspired by our country

WORDS: Remy Raitt

We take a page out of Marisa van Vuuren’s ‘Inspired by our Country’ notebooks – the first step in attaining her dream of owning a stationery and paper boutique.

As a brand manager by day and product designer by night, there seems to be no end to Marisa van Vuuren’s creativity. She recently launched a colourful range of Mzanzi-inspired notebooks and told us more about the designs and inspiration behind them…

Why notebooks and, more broadly, why stationery?

I chose to start with notebooks because they have a longer lifespan than greeting cards or wrapping paper. People document their lives in their notebooks, they write their shopping lists, and they share their hopes and dreams with their notebooks. Notebooks are very personal and so I set out to reinvent the “little black book” by giving it a little bit of personality.

I chose to work on stationery for two reasons: Firstly, there are so many areas of design that celebrate our South African culture – including fashion, jewellery, furniture and fabric design – but no one out there is really specialising in pure stationery design.

The stationery design arena in South Africa is mainly geared towards weddings and tourists, but not to the mainstream market. Secondly, stationery enables me to live out my passion for old-school printing methods.

How do your notebooks capture the essence of South Africa?

My aim with this collection was to combine colours, textures and designs that are quintessentially South African. I wanted to produce a collection that doesn’t just look South African, but also feels South African when you hold it.

I worked with raw chipboard for this fist collection because it has a very earthy, unfinished feel. People often cover chipboard during the book-binding process. It’s generally seen as functional material and so I wanted to make it the star of my design.

South Africa is a young country with lots of rawness and rich culture. I aimed to convey this in the design by juxtaposing the rawness of the chipboard with bold use of rich colour.

How did you decide on your plant and animal motifs?

It took me forever to decide what to focus on for my motives. I wanted to show iconic South African elements, but in a new way. I wanted them to become decorative and have an art-like feel without rehashing the same old ideas.

By using a kudu instead of a springbok, turning the protea upside down and making the aloe feel like it grows off the side of the page, I think I managed to breathe new life into these symbols.

Where can people get hold of the ‘Inspired by our Country’ notebooks?

The books are currently sold online and I have applied to a couple of local Johannesburg markets to get the sales moving faster. I will also be working with boutique shops and bookstores to grow my distribution base.

What are your plans for the future?

I aim to create a sustainable business model that enables me to increase the volumes of my sales while still doing limited-edition releases.

In the meantime, I will be working on the next collection of notebooks to be ready for launch at next year’s Design Indaba Expo.

More information: http://www.inspiredbyourcountry.co.za/about.html