Where did the name of your studio come from?

Brown Parcel Press began in 2007 while I was still at UGA completing my degree in printmaking. I was dating someone at the time that was an expert gift giver. He wrapped all of his presents in thick brown parcel paper with a thin cotton rope. He never used any tape and the paper somehow always looked perfectly weathered. Being college students, we were pretty broke so the presents were always simple but the aesthetics of the presentation were perfectly imperfect. They always made me feel so special - which is, I think, 90% of the idea behind gift giving. I named the company Brown Parcel Press because I hoped that anyone that bought or was given our work would feel special in that same way.

Who is on your team, and how did you come together?

On our site, we say our press is powered by "four hands". Those four hands belong to me and my mom, Gaëlle Boling. When I started out, I was doing every little aspect of the business down to preparing taxes by myself. This business was, and still is, a huge labor of love for me and at the beginning there was very little extra capital so I pinched pennies by not outsourcing anything. Time changes everything, and in 2011, I became pregnant with my first daughter. At 8 months pregnant, my belly was too big to keep printing...literally, I kept brushing against one of the levers and switching the press from the "print" setting to the "trip" setting. We were also farming pigs and chickens at the time and my parents came down a lot on the weekends to help out, so she offered to help print something that I had a tight deadline on. It turns out, she really responded to the process of it, which was wonderful because with a new little baby I really needed an extra pair of hands. Now she does the majority of the printing, and I do all of the designing. I don’t think working with family is for everyone, but for me there’s a beautiful harmony and ease of working with someone you know so intimately. My mom and I each have distinct styles of dressing, but when it comes to design we have very similar sensibilities. If I’m working on something, and there’s a part of it that still feels off, I’ll have her take a look and immediately she’ll help me figure out what needs tweaking. Here’s the way my mom explains working together from her point of view: "It is an interesting relationship in the sense that the roles of growing up are somewhat reversed. Megan is the teacher. We have an intuitive sense of giving each other space, of viewing the work at end in the same way, of getting along beautifully...And we juggle printing with taking care of two little ones."

How did you get into design and letterpress printing?

Finding letterpress and design feels like a healthy mix of serendipity and fate. My dad was a painting major in college so we grew up in a house full of art. We visited museums and were always given space to explore things that interested us. It was such a gift. That being said, I didn't think I had any artistic talent to speak of. I fell in love with biology and life sciences in high school and thought I was going to go to med school. When I got to school, I felt so lost. I knew I loved biology, but something about the path I was on was just a poor fit. I was convinced I was just at the wrong school, my brother who was also at the University of Georgia, and an art major, convinced me to try out the art program before applying to other schools. Even though I'm a big planner and his suggestion sounded half-ludicrous, I knew that I needed something different so I listened to him. After my first printmaking class, I knew I was born to be a printmaker. Letterpress was just the icing on the cake. It felt so right. I spent all of my time in the studio and would dream about printing...it didn't hurt that I had a wonderful group of friends that were all as passionate as me about printmaking.

Where do you find inspiration for your designs?

Inspiration is everywhere. I always keep my eye out for color pairings or patterns in nature. Also, Instagram has been a huge inspiration and provided a peer group for me since I live in a place with few people around. The last two years, I have done some larger collaborations with people I met via Instagram. Last year was with the talented and big- hearted farmer/florist Mandy O’Shea of Moonflower Designs, and this year we produced a collaborative calendar with Saveur’s 'Food Blogger of the Year', Molly Yeh from “My Name is Yeh”. I am kind of a luddite at heart, but even I am amazed by and love the internet for its ability to create connections.

What kind of press(es) do you use?

We use a Vandercook SP-20

Which press was used to print the Nicely Noted cards?

Vandercook SP-20