Illustrated Family Portrait: Holiday Card 2013
In our time honored tradition of sending an illustrated family portrait (started in 2012), we commissioned the lovely and talented Cecilia Ruiz to create this year’s holiday greeting. Cecilia is a graduate of the renowned School of Visual Arts MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program where Matthew teaches, and is seriously one of the most enchanting ladies you will ever meet. All of the details in her artwork brilliantly capture the spirit of our eventful year!
Because we tend to love extremely custom and overly complicated executions, we decided the only suitable solution for sealing the envelope was with our own wax seal (obviously!) We had a custom one made with the double-R crest from our Disney shirts and hashtag #royalrichmonds. It’s a pleasant surprise that the wax seals made it through the US Postal Service intact — mostly.
Thank you again to Cecilia for working with us to create this amazing keepsake for our family!
Calling all type nerds! More fun with the Silhouette Cameo cutter… this time making typography-inspired snowflakes, each in a unique pattern created with the letters in our names.
This summer we did more traveling than we usually do. In July, Matthew and I took a much needed parents-only vacation to London 
We can’t believe that Cooper is already six years old! Having to count your age on two hands instead of one is a pretty big deal, so we celebrated with a candy-filled carnival birthday party for him and all his Kindergarten buddies.
Who needs the Instagram/Flickr photo wars when you can keep it real 18th century style with a hand painted family portrait instead?
In the Halloween wake of Hurricane Sandy, our little 6 and F trains were, quite literally, the only subways running at the time. Matthew outdid himself yet again and created another gorgeous, completely custom handcrafted subway car — though scaled down slightly to fit Holden! Cooper wanted to wear his for the third year in a row with an updated train line (in prior years, it was formerly a 
I will jump at any opportunity to have us wear matching shirts (have you seen our 
April 9th marks the 9th anniversary of our awesomely creative (and geeky) engagement. Matthew had been up late “working” for many nights, which is the norm, but this time his real reason for burning the midnight oil was this incredible creation.
Disclaimer: This is an excerpt from an actual email from Cooper’s teacher that came to my inbox yesterday. I almost fell over when I read it. As designers, we’re trying to raise design-minded kids and Cooper has always shown an affinity for typography from a very young age… but no one will believe us when we say we aren’t forcing this on him. He IS right about Comic Sans, though. Maybe he’ll start a movement to improve typography in preschool classrooms across America!
The moment Holden picked up his ukulele and stuck a harmonica in his mouth, we knew we had a tiny Bob Dylan on our hands. Naturally, the next logical step was to convert our building lounge into a rock club for his 2nd birthday party!
