I am so jazzed to be sharing an interview with the delightful Happy Menocal this month! Happy is one of my favorite artists, branding gurus, and stationary queens working in the biz today. I am so drawn to her whimsical perspective and joyful point of view. No matter what she creates, her work has a way of simply making me smile. It’s my *dream* to collaborate with her on a party and a custom stationary suite one day. (Happy, get ready!) I loved chatting with her and hope you enjoy our Q&A!

1. For those unfamiliar with your company tell us a little about yourself.
   I’m an artist, and the creative director of Happy Menocal Studio, a fine art, branding, and stationery studio based in Bedford, NY. We create for our clients a clear, radiant expression of their identity through a variety of media, usually starting with stationery. We’re best known for our custom heraldry, our collaborations with Schumacher (our second collection launching in May) and Paperless Post, and for our residential and commercial mural work.
   
2. What does your creative process look like?
   I’m just wired like a consumer. Not in the sense of buying a lot of stuff, but more that I admire and consider and evaluate everything in my path, and appreciate the seduction of marketing. I love the *promise* of an image, whether it’s a bar of soap, a guy in a car, a bowl of spaghetti, a magnolia tree… I’m always intrigued by people’s choices, how they express their natural gifts. So when we receive a brief from a client, I’m really just living out that fantasy with them: what is the soul of this thing and what’s its best expression. And then we find a way to do it, usually starting with paper and ink.
3. Which artists do you most admire? 

   My studio team is a cyclone of ingenuity, tirelessness, and perfectionism. Hillary, our business director, is on an 8:30pm call with a bride in China, her desk buried in 280 packages wrapped with 280 seaglass green silk ribbons that she personally tied when an assistant got hit with the flu. Sarah, our calligrapher and art director, is addressing a stack of envelopes in indigo ink with a paintbrush, pausing to sketch a monogram that looks like she wrought it in iron. Vanessa, our designer and director of digital media, is troubleshooting how to animate a zodiac wheel directing guests to a celestial party in Marrakech, transforming my crude sketch into a glittering night sky. Also props to the interior designer Fernando Santangelo who hired me to do the murals at Nine Orchard, the hotel on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, of which I’m so proud and grateful… and my mom, the decorative painter Katharine Barnwell. She taught me everything!

   

4. Are there any mantras you live by? Or what’s the best advice you’ve received?
   I think this is may be just an Instagram platitude, but it’s a useful recipe for happiness: something to do / someone to love / something to look forward to.

5. What is your greatest extravagance?

Walking everywhere briskly, hoping to run into somebody I like.

9. When you’re not busy in the studio how do you nurture your creativity? Any hobbies?
Gotten into ice skating. Fast and free and vulnerable because I don’t wanna fall!

Thank you Happy! You can follow her online at on Instagram @happymenocalstudio