A Long Story Short…
In 1994 Brian Reed, a Washington native, met Amy Sylvester, a Colorado transplant in (of all places) a Seattle coffee shop. Upon discovering they shared common rural upbringings, a love for art, crafts, coffee and the great outdoors they quickly fell in love! Eventually drawn to the crafty vibe and friendly people of Portland Oregon they decided to relocate. Currently, they live and work out of their 1908 cottage in SE Portland along with their daughter Matilda and cat Twig.
Tilly and Twig
Old School Beginnings…
Many a summer evening in 2003 was spent at the kitchen table with Brian sketching botanical illustrations and Amy musing over color and pattern choices. These images were to be the first collection of Old School Stationers letterpress cards. The response was very exciting!

Brian, put to use his years of experience developed in the printing world along with his inherited artistic talents from his mother and became very busy sketching and letterpress printing.

Amy, drawing from her knowledge gained after years working in the home textile industry, began assisting Brian with color and pattern choices. She also wears the title of Girl Friday Extraordinaire!

Since the initial launch of the Botanical collection many more collections have followed, as well as the addition of ready to hang wall prints.
Made in Oregon

The Many Forms of Muse…
Flowers growing in their garden, textile patterns and childhood camping memories are just a few of the many inspirations reflected within each collection. While there have been many moments of Aha!, there have been times when inspiration arrived silently unobserved One good example of this is the Creature Feature line. Brian had been working on the images while Amy was pregnant with Matilda. Without realizing it he had created Old School’s most popular collection for children!
Amy and Tilly

What Lies ahead…
Old School Stationers will be attending the National stationery show in May as well as the August NY international gift fair. There are several new collections being mulled over and in the works as well as talk about some new product lines (shhh!) Keep checking back to get the latest!

A special thanks goes out to Mary Ann Kelly, who first taught Brian the art of letterpress. Also, a very big thanks to Kim Koehler who created this fabulous website for us!