Meet Haute Stock Members Melanie & Lisa from Moodthology Papery!

Who or what inspired you to start your business?

We have always had a strong desire to be in business for ourselves. Having our own business allows us to have creative freedom without limitations and the ability to set our own path.

From a very young age, we have always loved drawing & painting. Creating our art masterpieces, which we’d display proudly on the fridge, like our own little art gallery.

It was clear early on that our love for art & design would play a major role in our lives and our career path. Our passion for art and design led us to further our educational journey into the study of design and visual arts, where we achieved a three-year design & visual arts diploma.

After we graduated, we decided to create our own design company, where we focused on graphic design, corporate branding, and logo design. We made this our core business focus for several years. While we did enjoy every minute of the creative process and working with our various clients, we had a desire to expand our reach to also focus more on our art and illustrations.

So, in 2018 we took the leap and created Moodthology Papery: a stationery, paper goods & lifestyle brand. We love creating beautiful event invitations for weddings, birthdays, baby showers, as well as a wide array of other paper goods and custom gifts.

What was your biggest struggle when starting out?

Our biggest struggle when we first started was balancing our two businesses. There was a bit of a learning curve, as we had never operated two businesses, at once. At first, it was a little overwhelming, as a lot of time needed to be invested in launching our new design business, while at the same time running and managing our current business.

To help overcome these challenges, we had to adjust our work schedule, creating a clean, concise plan to manage our time effectively and reduce the stress, so we had a clear path forward to achieve our goals.

Artists can use Haute Stock product mockups to showcase their designs, just like Moodthology Papery has in order to feature their unique and creative designs. — What’s the #1 thing you attribute to growing your biz?

*Passion!* Your business is a representation of you. When you’re passionate about what you do it shows and your customers will take notice.
This passion is what we attribute to growing our business. We put our passion into every design, illustration and product we make. *We want our passion for design, art & illustration to be reflected in all of our product designs, our brand and our image.*

What podcasts are you listening to right now?

We’re listening to:

• Seize the Yay by Sarah Halloway
• The Goal Digger By Jenna Kutcher

What mindset shifts have you made to set your business up for success?

Balance & Boundaries. Creating our schedule that takes into account both our business needs and our personal needs as well. Finding that right balance has increased our productivity, clearer path for success and more time to value creativeness and joy for life.

Amazing artwork is meant to be shown off! Use Haute Stock imagery to bring your work to life. Moodthology Papery uses every Haute Stock photo in a unique way, showcasing their talent as digital designers time and time again. — What’s your fav music to listen to when you’re creating graphics?

We love to listen to music while we create our art and designs. We listen to a wide selection of artists like: The Strike, The Weeknd, Scavenger Hunt, Cannons, The Vamps and Coldplay, to name a few.

How do you decide on what images to use for your brand?

We choose images that match our brand and are well suited for the content that we’re creating. We showcase a lot of our artwork, designs and products to our customers and audience on our website, blog, and social media. It’s important that we showcase our work with images that allow our brand and designs to shine.

With Haute Stock’s beautiful designs and content, we can always find the perfect image for our brand and the content that we’re creating.

What’s your favorite Haute Stock collection?

Every one of Haute Stock’s collections are truly stunning and beautifully styled. We really love the Pink Cloud, Creative Studio, Raspberry Office & Creative Mockup collections. These are just a few of our favourites!

Scrolling through Moodthology's Instagram Feed showcases how talented & unique their designs are, and how talented they are at taking almost any stock photo and turning it into a mockup for their designs! — How has Haute Stock helped you in your biz?

Image is really everything and it is so important to capture a professional image that truly reflects our brand image, style and that speaks to our audience.
*Haute Stock is a resource that we can’t live without.* It allows us to put the focus on our designing, illustrations and product designs, without having to schedule in time to take our own photoshoots. *They make it so easy to find exactly what we’re looking for, so we can be more productive and focus on other areas of our business operations.*

What has been your biggest business lesson learned?

Being able to adapt to changes and new challenges. When Covid first hit, we’ve learned that we needed to set the frameworks of our business to be more diversified, to capture a wider audience and increase our potential customer base.

We can’t get enough of the creative ways Moodthology uses Haute Stock styled stock photos to mockup their unique artwork & digital designs, so we had to share some more examples!