Carrie and Renee opened Hitch Design Studio in February of 2014 and have loved every minute of having a gift and card shop in downtown Brookings! Although we specialize in wedding invitations, save the dates, wedding programs and wedding planning (wedding decorating and wedding rentals for centerpieces), we also have a retail store located at 315 Main Ave., Suite #1 in Brookings, SD!
We carry the cutest gifts and cards for any occasion, offer to put tissue paper in your bag if it’s a gift for someone special, and carry brands like Kate Spade stationery, Jonathan Adler, Rifle Paper Co, Elum, and Thimlepress. JUST in time for holiday shopping, we’ve stocked our store full of items like these:
- Jewelry (Statement necklaces from Opaque Lion and Mama Peacock.)
- Christmas cards (Including stickers, gift tags, letterpress and foiled options.)
- Notecard sets (From gold polka dots to mint green envelope liners…it’s heaven being sent through the mail.)
- Art prints (sized 8×10 and 11×17, which could be perfectly framed to fit any decor.)
- Pens (Like the good, heavy, re-fillable ones. The one you do NOT want to lose.)
- Water and coffee mugs (We’re thirsty. We carry six different styles, so there’s sure to be one for everybody’s taste. Pun intended.)
- Journals (Including the new and popular “5-Minute Journal” which helps you journal every day by asking you questions. If you’re anything like me, you’d stare at a blank page and not know where to start! This canvas bound journal helps you along the journaling journey.)
- Tote bags (Shopping bags in Kate Spade polka dots or canvas bags with a funky print, just waiting for you to fill them with goodness. Shop in style.)
- Sticky note sets (The cuter, the better.)
- Notebooks (Carrie and I joke that we have about five notebooks being used one time. You can never have enough — especially when the covers are filled with stripes and dots!)
- Ink stampers, confetti poppers, Flying Wish Paper, paper pom-pom ball decorations, perpetual calendar blocks, iPad cases, iPhone 5 cases, and so much more. You’ll have to stop in!
And better yet, get 15% off! Stop in the store to fill out our “Hitch Wish List”! It’s a wish list that you write your favorite items from Hitch, and when that special someone buys something for you off that list, they get 15% off!
Interested in hearing more? Here’s a bit more about Hitch Design Studio from a recent interview we completed:
Store/company name and location: Hitch Design Studio in Brookings, South Dakota
- When and how did you start working in this business? We opened our Hitch storefront on February 6th of 2014, but we’ve both been paper- and typography-obsessed since we graduated college. Combined, Renee and Carrie have been freelancing for 20 years and as our design talents developed, so did our projects. As our friends would ask us to design wedding invitations and christmas cards (in addition to our other projects), it stationery design became a labor of love and the bulk of our freelance work. We decided to join forces and open a store together in the very city where we got our college education. South Dakota State University is a connection we both share, as well as a huge part of Brookings, SD and our customer base. We were thrilled to be able to give back.
- What are your three top-selling vendors? Kate Spade, Rifle Paper Co. and Thimble Press cards and gift items.
- With so many new product developments, how do you recognize quality and what will work best for your needs? We both have a very developed eye when it comes to good paper and quality printing. We are constantly feeling texture and checking thickness by flicking the corner of any type of paper product or sample we receive. But I think the best gauge is, “Would I, as the ultimate paper nerd be giddy if i received this from someone?” If the answer is yes, then we have a great product.
- What trends have you noticed or do you predict for the coming months? We are seeing more and more people fall in love with personalized stationery. We don’t just mean adding a monogram. We mean the type of personalization that includes bringing in flowers from your garden at home and having us paint them with watercolor and photograph them and actually using that as the art on your stationery cards. That particular customer ordered 10 different floral designs based on the flowers from her own garden! We are absolutely gushing over this level of personalization for our customers.
- Please share the most helpful advice you have received. Our motto is “Do what you love. Love what you do.” We have it on t-shirts, on our shopping bags, and hanging on our wall at our store. It reflects our values as entrepreneurs and we always think about that whenever we may any decision large or small. We ask ourselves, will we truly love this project? If the answer is yes, then we dive in and are sure to produce some of our best work.
Stop in and enjoy shopping!
