In my second year of the graphic design MFA program at Yale, I designed this poster as part of my thesis. My topic, Do-It-Yourself (DIY), explored the ways we can customize and re-purpose everyday things. I had taught a workshop the previous summer and one of my students kept using the phrase “for like ever...” (one of my favorites) over and over with a sharp Valley-girl tone and it kept ringing in my ears afterward. In 2004, after graduation, my classmate Jeffrey Lai encouraged me to screen print a very small run and he helped me make a batch of 20 in exchange for one for himself.

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In 2005 we printed the poster again, but this time offset on extremely thin pink paper — the exact kind that is stocked at your local copy shop that fades in the smallest amount of sun. We printed it in a fluorescent pinky poppy red ink that almost looked orange in certain lights. It was the “b-side” of a type specimen poster for Village. We had hundreds of them printed and they were all folded into a tidy mailer. We keep 50 copies of the print-run off to the side, unfolded, for no particular reason and decided to offer them for sale on Village for $10.00. Every now and then we sold one. And every now and then we pulled one out and wrapped a present with it. Then Brian Murphy of Loeffler Randall purchased one and framed it which seemed very novel and exciting to us. Not too long afterward he and his immensely talented wife, designer Jessie Randall’s apartment was profiled in a small feature in Elle Accessories. That was a “huge” month for us — we sold at least 10 of these prints....

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In early 2006 Brian mentioned that he and Jessie were going to be featured in Domino magazine. They weren’t sure how the finished piece might turn out, but there was a chance it could be a cover story. He asked if we were prepared and I said we were, after the Elle Accessories poster blitz we had at least 30 copies left! Yes, I was that clueless. I was excited for Brian and Jessie and thought the poster might appear in a faintly in a background shot somewhere at best, or would completely cropped out at worst. When the September issue appeared, my brother called me breathless. He said, “Okay. Your poster is on the cover. It’s in the middle of the page. It’s big! It’s as big as the woman in the photograph!” I dialed up Domino online, picked myself up off the floor and called our printer to make a proper version of the poster once our vast supply of 30 was spent and, incredibly, we've been selling this print ever since.

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A lot of years have passed since all of this went down. In the meantime, I started my own studio, married, became a mother, moved to Brooklyn and am now a breast cancer survivor. I have been very lucky.