Fletcher, Pastre, Rowson: Process begins with talking, not designing
Jay Fletcher, Amy Pastre and Courtney Rowson don’t think design is fine art.
Instead, the Charleston-based designers see their craft as a medium to help their clients represent their brands.
Since opening Stitch Design Co. in 2009, Pastre and Rowson have created what they call “brand families” for companies around the world, including the Spoleto Festival USA. To build them, they combine components that are similar enough to build a cohesive identity but distinct enough to grab attention.
“The elements are members of a large family, not regurgitations of each other,” Pastre said at a lecture hosted by the South Carolina chapter of AIGA, the professional design association, Wednesday night.
Defining a company’s image requires a lot of thought.
Each of the speakers agreed that the design process begins with talking with a client about what they want, well before any designs are drawn up.
“You just gotta articulate everything from the start and make sure they understand,” Fletcher said after the lecture.
Communication is still important after the brand identity is finished.
Pastre and Rowson said they’ve kept in contact with each of their clients, so they can see the effects of their designs, especially with local businesses.
Rewined, a handmade candle company in Charleston, saw a large increase in sales after their brand was redesigned by Stitch, and the new look picked up press coverage.
A number of unique materials were used in Rewined’s packaging and stationery, including wood veneer and color-coded wax seals.
Stitch often incorporates unusual textures into their work, a practice that was inspired by the letterpress that Pastre and Rowson bought in 2004, starting their first joint venture called Sideshow Press. Experiments with printing on more than just paper inspired Stitch’s current process of collecting fabric, ephemera and various materials onto mood boards.
Designers use mood boards and other tools to collect ideas. Fletcher, originally an illustrator, occasionally sketches ideas for posters or logos, but he generally starts his geometric and type-centric work on the computer.
“It’s sort of blasphemous in the design world to be like, ‘I don’t sketch,’” he said after the lecture.
Fletcher takes time to show clients possible logos in a realistic context. He’s spent hours illustrating a storefront to display his designs.
Fletcher said spending long hours in his design process is worth it, because it’s what he what he enjoys.
“Anybody can be happy doing anything they want to do in life,” he said.