Indie Designers Q&A: Laura Lonsdale Designs

Continuing our series shining the spotlight on the brilliant independent designs that work with Funky Pigeon, today we’re excited to learn more about Laura at Laura Lonsdale Designs. Dive in and find out what a typical day looks like for one of our amazing indie designers and what inspires Laura when she’s creating cards for Funky Pigeon. Plus, don’t forget to check out some of Laura’s cards at the end of the article!

Introduce yourself…

Hi I’m Laura, I live in Preston with my husband and little girl and I’m an independent designer and owner of Laura Lonsdale Designs. I have no previous design experience, however 2 and a half years ago I started designing cards as a bit of a side hustle and hobby.

Myself and my husband had just gone through 6 rounds of IVF to have our daughter and I wanted to design cards for those who had struggled with fertility issues. Things took off quite quickly, and I then began designing cards for all occasions and watched as the sales kept rolling in!

In March this year I left my marketing job to run my design business full time! I absolutely love designing fun, vibrant cards to make people giggle and feel so lucky that I get to wake up and do my dream job everyday!

What are the challenges you face as an independent artist? And the joys?

The joy is most definitely doing something I love everyday and being my own boss. It’s completely life changing and so liberating. With it comes different stresses though, like never really knowing what I’m going to earn in any given month. It can be really terrifying but also kind of exciting! I feel such a sense of achievement when I reach a new sales milestone or a new opportunity comes up

Describe your typical work day…

A typical day for me is getting up with my little girl, getting her ready in the morning and having some breakfast before cracking on with processing any Etsy orders through my website. I then set to work on any design briefs I’ve been given, or I’ll work on something new that I want to design. I usually do my designing in the mornings, then do any design uploading in an afternoon with lots of brews and snacks!

What sort of cards do you love to design?

I really like responding to things that are going on in the media with new designs. It’s quite exciting when a big news story breaks and I set to work on a card design straight away!

How did you get into greeting card design?

It started off with me just wanting to create cards of support for those going though infertility. I had struggled a lot with mental health through our long IVF journey, and I found there really wasn’t a lot of support out there for couples going through it. I also got made redundant whilst pregnant and had a lot of spare time on my hands, so it seemed like a good opportunity to try something new!

What’s your creative process?

I know a lot of artists sketch out what they want to do first but I like to just get started on a design and get stuck in! I use Adobe Illustrator to draw out my designs and I also have a drawing tablet for designs that are a little more complex. I recently turned our spare room into a studio, and I love nothing more than settling down in there for the day to do some designing!

What or who inspires your work?

Usually things going on in my life and personal experiences inspire my best work! Also, I mostly design cards that I would like to receive myself. My MILF card is a best seller, and that came from me saying to my husband that there’s no good cards for husbands to give their wives / girlfriends on Mother’s Day. It is now my best selling card all through the year but goes wild on Mother’s Day!

What do you like to do outside of work?

I love nothing more than catching up with friends over wine and yummy food! I’m also really close with my family and love spending time with them. I go to the gym regularly and love pilates.

What are your favourite cards that you’ve designed & why?

By far my favourite cards are my IVF cards – these aren’t a big seller at all, they’re quite niche. However the reason I started designing was because of our struggle with IVF and infertility. It was such a difficult time for us, yet something so beautiful came out of it. We got our baby girl and I started my own business!

A close second would be my ASOS and Amazon cards. I designed these following many arguments with my husband about my addiction to ordering stuff and turns out a lot of people have the same problem haha!