Laurie Louis, owner of Laurie Louis Designs a custom paper and goods company located in Indian Land, South Carolina, is a stationery designer who leans on Southern style to create universal designs for every taste. Laurie started her design business and after a long career at ESPN and has made it her full-time job. While her initial work was for the wedding industry, her business has grown to a lifestyle brand and includes nautical, beach and classic themes.
While her initial work was for the wedding industry, her business has grown to a lifestyle brand and includes nautical, beach and classic themes. Laurie’s website sells a combination of paper goods and custom gifts online and Laurie Louis Designs will be branching out into specialty boutiques in 2018.
Growing up, when Laurie’s mom and her friends hosted an event, they made sure that everything matched from the invitations to the table cloths and napkins. Today, she’s carrying on that tradition and helping others create magical events starting with custom stationary to match their theme from beginning to end. I recently attended an intimate dinner party Laurie hosted to showcase her work and discuss her design style. This dinner party was no exception to her entertaining rule — red tablecloths, blue lanterns to light our meals accented with beautiful yellow sunflowers and catering from local company H&M.
Each design is carefully thought out, with Laurie handling all of the design work and the majority of her printing. If there are items she can’t personally produce out of her design studio, she uses a trusted small printing business in Alabama to handle her client orders, knowing they have the same expectations regarding quality and customer satisfaction.
I asked Laurie if she worked with thermal and letterpress stationery and she told me she’d love to branch out in the future, but she has to test and work with everything until it meets her high standards for craftsmanship.
As my son heads into his senior year of high school, I’m already in the planning stages for his graduation party. I’ll be planning on designing custom invitations and gifts with Laurie to fete him before he flies the nest for college.
Disclosure: I attended an event for Laurie Louis Designs and was given a small gift as a dinner guest.