I can’t tell you how excited I was to meet Jill Bliss at the Stationery Show this past May. She was so friendly and open to answer the twenty hundred questions I asked her about work. Like many, I’ve been a huge admirer of Jill for a while now, in love with her bright intricately patterned drawings. Her illustration and designs are based on nature and she is super eco-concious in every way- using soy based inks and all recycled materials. Check out Blissen where Jill sells a myriad of handmade and collaborative products from paper goods and stationery to more limited bags, pouches, wallets and jewlery. I especially love her birds, each made with found fabric and personalized with it’s own name on the bottom. Their shape is such a cool abstraction of a bird. Jill has become a role model for a lot of independent designers who are trying to become successful and make money doing something they love. I was so pleased with her willingness to share so many of her different sketchbooks pages so we could get a taste of her behind the scenes. The pages not only have gorgeous drawings scattered throughout them, but tons of notes, and clippings pasted in. I like to see this evidence of process and thinking and all the diagrams for her 3-d work. Thanks so much Jill for sharing these personal pages. See more of Jill’s work here and here.

© Julia Rothman 2007