Artist Interview: Ampersand’s Bold, Colorful Designs are Inspired by Collaboration

Carrie Kiefer and Morgan Georgie met over two decades ago in graphic design school and have been collaborators ever since, finally founding their own apparel, home décor, and stationery brand — Ampersand Design Studio.

The Tie Bar’s latest Artist Collaboration features Ampersand’s signature “bold, fun, and playful” designs in a beautiful selection of ties. Since this is Carrie & Morgan’s first foray into menswear, they sat down with us to discuss the design process and why it’s so important to them.

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The Tie Bar: Could you introduce each of yourselves, the brand as a whole, and what you do?

Carrie Kiefer: I’m Carrie Kiefer.

Morgan Georgie: And I’m Morgan Georgie. We’re the two founders and owners of Ampersand Design Studio. We now have a small team, but it started just the two of us falling in love with illustration and surface pattern design and basically wanting to put our patterns on everything we can.

TTB: And you met in graphic design school?

MG: We did! We both actually have graphic design degrees. Typically, most of our classmates ended up going much more of a branding or a web design path, but both of us were a little bit more fashion and interior-interested, and so with the graphic design degree, we ended up landing in product design, which is not the standard path.

We started working in gift wrap and party goods and stationery and it really kind of took us down a path of researching home and fashion trends and color palettes in a way that, you know, we weren’t trained to do in school for graphic design. It was really such a different deal.

So, we fell in love with product design and as we were working in a bigger corporation, all we could think about was designing our own lines of products. So we dreamt about it for a while, and it took us eight years to actually leave said corporation. We finally took the leap and started our own company and then we started taking all of our patterns to a trade show in New York just to get started in the business.

TTB: How long has Ampersand officially been around?

MG: We’re at 14 years now.

CK: It’s the same age as our oldest kiddos, so that’s how we can remember.

MG: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think anyone would recommend starting a business right when you have babies, but we both had our first kid the same year and that’s also when we started the business. At the time we were like, “Well, there’s nobody better time to have a flexible schedule” — but it was a complete disaster, of course.

TTB: In the moment that’s probably tough, but it’s awesome that you have two babies, in a way, kind of growing up at the same time.

MG: That is so true. We call our business the other baby all the time

CK: Now it’s a misbehaving teenager. We’ve got a lot of those around now, too.

TTB: Graphic design is your background, but a lot of the things you’re making become these physical rugs or bedding or now ties. How important is the tactile nature of your art?

MG: It’s really the thing that brings it to life for us. You know, we can paint and draw and work on the computer all day, but until we can actually hold the product in our hand and feel it or see someone wearing it or see something in one of our friend’s houses — it’s the thing that keeps us going and why we love doing what we’re doing. It’s kind of everything.

CK: It’s a rush anytime we see something out in the wild.

TTB: Similarly, you have brick and mortar scores, right? How has that changed the work?

MG: We have no business doing retail, we have no merchandising degree or retail, but here we are — we can design the products and we went for it, and it’s been really, really rewarding. It’s a whole different deal when before that, we really only had e-commerce.

Now we get to hear people shop and we’re actually checking people out when they come in. So we get all kinds of feedback, you know — whether we want it or not. But it’s great! People will be like, “Gosh, I wish you just made something like this, but in a different color.” And we’re like, “Well, we can do that,” so we can release that the next month. Or they see something on our Instagram and they’re like, “I wish you would make this as an art print.” And we’re like, “Hold on, we’re gonna run to the back, and we can print that out for you.”

So it’s just been really cool and, you know, a lot of our stuff has French words on it, and we are now positioned right next to this French immersion school, so there’s all these kids that come in that can read everything and it’s just it’s been a whole different, amazing level of satisfaction that we can talk to people and see people and understand why they’re buying our stuff.

TTB: The name Ampersand comes from the typography “and” symbol (&), which is always so unique. Is it because of that or because it’s the two of you together?

CK: Yes, exactly. All of the above. In design school, we met in typography class, so it seemed fitting, you know, just for the birth of our friendship. And then we also read at some point — just because we’ve always loved ampersands — that the ampersand is where a typographer gets to have a little more fun. Like, the rest of the font can be a little stuffy and then they can still kind of go wild with the ampersand. We liked the symbolism of that.

MG: It can have a little extra flare, so we love that, but yeah, then there’s also two of us, and so it just felt like the perfect name.

TTB: How did this collaboration with The Tie Bar first happen?

MG: We know and love [The Tie Bar President] Michelle. She is so amazing. She was actually, — that was one of our first major, major licensing deals when we first started

CK: And possibly our favorite one to date, honestly. We had the best time working with her.

MG: Yeah, she just has this incredible creative vision, and also really trusts the artist that she works with just to like, let you do your thing and that’s not as common as you think. So, when she reached out to us, it was like an automatic yes, like, “Whatever you’re working on — yes, we’re in.”

TTB: How did the design process for these happen exactly?

MG: We frequently work in a paper cutout, so that floral is a paper cutout kind of collage. And then we really wanted a wacky, not formal or symmetrical dot that was a little bit more whimsical than things we had seen before.

When we were a June launch, we wanted it to be like a fun, casual summer vibe — picture a lot of outdoor stuff.

It’s definitely for someone who wants to have a little playful, casual vibe. That’s what we were going for. It’s really what a lot of our designs lend themselves towards, and we think it’s such a fun kind of addition to, you know, menswear.

TTB: You sell apparel on your website, too, but is this the first time designing super traditional menswear things?

MG: Yes, yes. 100%. In our minds, it was a little bit of a challenge until we realized that the stuff that we usually work on and design translates really well. But we did a lot more research, especially with the color palette, and it’s a different deal. Do you remember when we first got — we were like, “Yes, we definitely want to do this, but can we?”

CK: And then we were like, “Are we cut out for it?” But The Tie Bar has such a fun, different aesthetic than most menswear that it’s like we can be ourselves in that space.

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