Jennifer Curulli is the founder of two businesses – Jennifer’s Papers, which she launched in 2011 and March and Bloom, which followed in 2017. Born and bred in New England, Jennifer moved from New York to live in London in 2014.
Describe your businesses one sentence
Jennifer’s Papers is a stationery company which focuses on wedding and kids party invitations, birthday cards, general stationery and personalised baubles. My designs are usually led by an obsession with typography plus pattern and where those two intermingle. March and Bloom is a graphic design and branding studio, from which I design for small to medium businesses (both product and service-based) who usually have a great story behind their brand.
What did you do before starting your own business?
Whilst living in New York I worked for worked for range of creative agencies. When I arrived in London, I worked at a small branding studio for a year, before setting up March and Bloom
Which businessperson do you most admire and why?
The chef Yotam Ottolenghi. His restaurants and cafes have top-notch food and branding. He hasn’t tried to expand too much, and he has stayed true to his vision and mission – to create beautiful, delicious food with as many fresh ingredients as possible.
Does entrepreneurship run in your family?
Absolutely! My great-grandfather owned paint shop in Brooklyn, New York and my grandfather owned a men’s clothing factory in Massachusetts with my great-uncle. I also have a cousin that owns a spa and another who founded their own piano school.
What advice would you give to someone considering starting an online business?
Businesses must be able to offer online purchasing capabilities (with a website that matches the quality of your product). Customers and clients can be in your neighbourhood, but they can also be from the other side of your city or other side of the country, you just never know.
Make sure your business has something different to offer and make sure your branding matches this.
What is it like running two businesses simultaneously?
It is not for the faint of heart. Thankfully, there are common threads that link the two and one helps me with the other. Understanding sales, shipping, retail, wholesale and products first-hand has helped me more with my product-based branding design clients as I help them create all of that for their unique brands. Whilst the branding and marketing I do for my clients has helped me make sure that my stationery clients always have the best experience.
If you had the opportunity to do it all again, what would you do differently?
I would focus more on stationery product lines for Jennifer’s Paper much earlier. I spent too much time on wedding and custom stationery. I would have loved to see what would have happened had I spent time creating more cohesive stationery products with my hand-drawn illustrations and lettering.
What are you most proud of?
That I get to design and create brands for clients who I adore and admire. The fact that I’m continuing to grow a network in a new city and country is something that I genuinely can’t believe I’ve done. I didn’t think starting my own branding studio would be possible because I had so few contacts in the UK when I started out. It’s something I am very thankful for.
What would you tell your 15-year-old self?
That there will be terrible parts of your professional design career while working for others, but that is all part of the sum that becomes your experience. It’s what you take from each of those terrible parts that propels you to do better things.
What do you enjoy about being in Wandsworth?
Wandsworth has been our home since moving here from the US. I love the green of the parks and commons, the quaint residential streets and the pockets of amazing local businesses you find in places like Hildreth Street, Bellevue Road, Broadway Market and Northcote Road.
IG @marchandbloom