We are sharing a personal journey with you today. Yes, it’s personal, but when you love what you do for work (like we do!) personal and professional often become one. At the end of last year, our art director Katrina took a trip to Japan (on her way to Thailand for a little R&R) and made sure to fit in a visit to our Japanese retailer, Ito-Ya.

Located in the posh Ginza neighborhood of Tokyo, Ito-Ya is an amazing nine-floor stationery mecca. We are very proud to be one of the few custom letterpress wedding lines they carry!

Here are a few photos Katrina captured during her visit:

Clockwise from top: /1/ View from outside, their signature giant paperclip  /2/ The Matsuya Ginza mall  /3/ View of the bustling first floor (it was this packed everywhere!) /4/ The nine floors! /5/ View of the neighborhood from the first floor /6/ Ito-ya carries our cards through Madison Park Greetings!

Most of the orders we work on together include art provided by Ito-Ya of the invitation wording, which our team pairs with elements from our Design Library. The result is always gorgeously striking and we love seeing our designs along with the intricate Japanese scripts on the letterpress printed cards.

There are so many more photos to share than we have room for in this post, but we thought we would send you off with a few of Katrina’s favorites from her travels about the city.

Sensō-ji -  an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, Taitō, Tokyo.

Design inspiration: Beautiful engraving on the Japanese Yen

Walking through Asakusa 

Mural  in Ueno

Walking through Ueno district, the smaller neighborhood she stayed in. She loved the laid back and peaceful attitude of this place and can’t wait to go back to visit.

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On that note, we hope your weekend is filled with fun travels and lots of inspiration!