This wasn’t supposed to be an official update. But I couldn’t resist sharing.
Did you know we spent six months just… staring at paper?
Okay, yes, we were absolutely doing other things in-between. But still. From April to October, we sifted through hundreds of textured papers--crumpled, fibrous, torn, scanned, scanned again. We even went home and rummaged through old notebooks from our childhoods, just to find the right texture for our new website's background!
Why? Because we knew our aesthetic, what we’ve come to call "Archival Bloom," needed to feel like memory and blossoming all at once. Archival Bloom means combining the tactile and intimate beauty of archives with the lush, unfurling softness of growth. It honors memory, collage, and rebirth. Layered, storied, and slow, it resists linearity and uplifts collectivity!
So, our website, it needed to look like something kept, something treasured. Like a diary left open. Like a collage unfolding.
We were searching for the perfect paper background! The one whose folds and crinkles felt lived-in, but not overwhelming. The one whose fibers made you feel held. We debated shades, crumple depth, fold placement, even the hue of each shadow. Then spent hours editing it--softening the greys, warming the whites, and tinting the texture until it felt like home.
And that’s the part no one sees.
But we see it.
And you’ll feel it.
Even if you don’t know why.
I hope you enjoyed this mini behind-the-scenes update. Thank you for reading! :)
-- Reaux (she/they), Founding Executive Director