More On That is a series that takes a deeper dive in getting to know our industry partners through 5 (in this case more!) questions. We talk collabs, careers, care, beauty, and you guessed it– more.
FoB: Kendra– the artist behind our gorgeous satin scarves– so nice to be talking to you! Can you tell us a little bit about your process designing the scarf and what the inspiration was behind it?
Kendra: Thank you so much for having me! I wanted to design something fun, colorful, bold and tropical with an artsy beauty inspired vibe so I decided to do a lip palm tree design. The work was done in Procreate on my iPad. Working digitally is very convenient and it allows me to use tools that look like traditional painting but in a way that is much easier for designing pieces to be reproduced in print.
FoB: How and when did you start designing?
Kendra: I’ve always been creative and interested in designing ever since I was little. The challenge comes in when you’re expected to get a lucrative career when you get older. After majoring in fashion merchandising in college, I didn’t really find it aligned with what I wanted to do as it lacked the creativity I enjoy so in my last year of college, I took whatever graphic design classes I could take in order to diversify my skill set. After I graduated from school, I ended up working in retail for several years since it was very difficult to find a job in my preferred field. Whenever I would get home from my retail job, I’d always draw every day, work on new designs, and utilize social media platforms to post about my work in order to get discovered. Eventually all of this persistence paid off and I began getting noticed by major brands and decided to try my hand at doing this full time. Luckily it has worked out for me so far.
FoB: What’s a different piece of yours that you love or are excited about?
Kendra: I can never really say that I have a favorite piece or a particular piece that I’m excited about. As someone who has many, many pieces of artwork, I’d say that I enjoy them all for different reasons or even different seasons.
FoB: How does beauty / confidence / self care play into your creation process, if at all?
Kendra: I’m not sure if it plays into the process itself but I definitely have a lot of beauty themed artwork. As someone who enjoys makeup, perfume, hair care, and skin care products, I usually will find ways to incorporate them into my work. I’ve also done quite a few beauty collaborations so that comes in handy since it ends up being pretty natural to come up with a design for something like that. As far as the subject of confidence goes, that appears a lot in my work. I generally use my cheetah character to express myself and any mood I may be in or even to speak on subjects I like to talk about. My cheetah character is also very into self care as I’ve made plenty of designs with her embracing that mood.
FoB: What makes you feel beautiful?
Kendra: I’m always a fan of simple luxuries like an awesome lipstick (and I have many, many options!) and an amazing fragrance also helps (I also have many options for that too!)
I don’t tend to overthink beauty or need to put on a whole lot of hair/makeup/accessories. Just taking everything day by day and indulging in the things I like works well for me.
