Northern and Noted: Behind the Curtain

Love exploring, style, and delicious food, well you can read about all that and more on the Northern & Noted blog. We are always looking for businesses and creators that use our stamps to help them succeed, and we were lucky enough to get the chance to talk to the delightful Alicia Bryan of Northern and Noted. Below you will find Alicia's inspiration for her stamps and how she has used them for her business.

Northern and Noted started as a blog while I was in college back in 2011, as a fashion and lifestyle blog. Over the years it changed more into a design blog and then when the pandemic hit in 2020 and I lost my job at a local theatre, I channeled all of my energy into turning it into an online shop with my own handmade designs!

I really find most of my inspiration in my everyday life. There is so much art, design, and color around us every day and I try to learn from everything I see. Most of us don't really step back and take time to realize that there is design everywhere - from websites we visit multiple times a day to even something as simple as a product in the grocery store.

I think there are a few things that make Northern and Noted unique but the first thing that comes to mind for me is that I really carefully curate everything that I create and sell. The online marketplace is so oversaturated today that sometimes it can be hard to find truly authentic designs that you can't find really anywhere else and I think I try to keep Northern and Noted as authentic as possible.

The logo for Northern and Noted evolved over several weeks of tweaking and trying to fit the look to my personality. I prefer designs that are easy to read, simple to remember, look good in different formats, but still have a design or font that makes them unique so that is what my goal was for Northern and Noted's logo.

I use the stamps in so many different ways! I use them on my packaging, whether that be on a box, an envelope, or just a poly mailer. I use them to stamp the back of my art prints as well as with fabric ink to label the clothing I create! I really liked that a rubber stamp was more customizable than any other options. I also wanted to be able to use many different ink colors with it and rubber stamps are the easiest way to be able to ensure that.

You can shop Northern & Noted on their Etsy and you can read the blog and learn more about N&N on their website. Northern & Noted also has a very active presence on social media, you can follow them on; Instagram, Facebook, Tik-Tok, and Pinterest.