Aaron told me a story. Couple of days ago, a customer at Coopers Catch was looking at our postcards that were resting on the counter. He took one, and put it in his pocket. Aaron said: Hey mate, they are for sale.

 And he replied: Oh, I thought they were free. Because, here, it says ‘Literally Yours’. 

I laughed. Not because I was surprised but because that was exactly what I had in mind at the start. I had planned this brand to be literally Selva’s one day because at that time she was making plans about quitting her job as a copywriter and moving to Brazil. I was afraid for her, she would be all alone in an brand new country. That’s why I got so excited when we came up with the note bag / shirt list idea because once I started doing the Kaikoura and New Zealand versions, the layout would be tested, Etsy store would be established, logo and the wordings and the packagings would be ready to be implemented for the different parts of the world. She could easily be writing the Brazil version and be selling the t-shirts to pay for her long accommodation in Itacare. 

At the same time in another ad agency in Istanbul, Seda was making plans to go to New York to study the latest web technologies; and Asiye started searching fashion MBA’s in London. Hey, if they wanted, we could make the London and New York versions of these stuff too! That’s how we found Literally Yours, a brand that would be literally ours whenever and where ever we needed. 

Of course this was before I found out how much capital is needed to earn a half a decent profit from the sales of t-shirts that were printed by someone else; still how expensive it would be to buy your own screen printing equipment and actually how hard it is to screen print, maybe not for an art director, but for a copywriter who was not even allowed to cut the brochure dummies back in the agency. 

But everything changes. Selva met with a man with a handsome moustache halfway to Dali’s; Seda & Asiye decided to establish their own design agency in Istanbul, and I, who does not know what she wants and where she wants for such a long time that she does not remember since when she wants, ended up moving into this new house two weeks ago.

And though I had a roller coaster relationship with this brand child of mine for the last couple of months -you can say it from all those non-existent blog posts here- and though most of the time I was inclined to pour gasoline over everything than trying to put more energy to it and, despite the fact that pushing this brand harder was on my “I Should Be Doing” list rather than my “I Am Gonna Do” list, here I am, totally by coincidence, somehow own one of the best spots on our world as a design studio, inside a clean huge empty two car garage opening its doors to the main street of Kaikoura with incredible sea and mountain views!

How could this happen? I was making interviews with tvnz in Auckland just two months ago. Was not me who believed that writing copies for an agency in Istanbul till 3 in the mornings were way more important than printing t-shirts in Kaikoura according to my “Can I Save the World Scala” just 3 months ago? What in the world did I do to deserve such a cool studio?!

But then, maybe it is not for me. It is for you. Just as the name suggests, this is Literally Yours Studio too. 

So dear friend, if you live close to Kaikoura, or planning a visit down here, please do know you have a place here. Maybe all you want is to sit for a couple of hours, listen to the waves and think, or you want to discuss an idea feverishly, or you always wanted to put your hands on a screen printer just like the old me 6 months ago but didn’t know who owns one and afraid to ask the professional printers who you knew would be answering no, please come. I have equipment here that is sitting idle most of the time. 

if I come to the postcards, t-shirts and tote bags, yes they are all literally yours too. But only if you are willing to buy :)

See you soon. 

Literally yours,

Ayca