Hello!

Welcome to my email list. Thanks for being amongst the first subscribers.

Why start an email list?

Instagram is great. But it’s built on distraction.

Email is old. But it’s direct, decentralised and allows for depth in communication.

Most of all, I can take this email list anywhere.

I’m building my newsletter on Beehiiv at the moment, but may try Substack at some point in the future.

Either way, (provided you don’t unsubscribe) you’ll all be there.

Change.

I’ve known most of my life that I wanted to be a designer.

It’s what my family does and it allows me to do what I love: build good things for great people.

I’ve also known for a while now that I wasn’t made to be an employee.

So I resigned.

After 6 year’s employed at DSR Branding, as the first full-time employee, I resigned from my role as Lead Designer.

And now…

• I rent an office from Dan Rowell (Founder of DSR),

• Spend more time in the studio than ever before,

• Continue to work and eat lunch alongside the team (Dan, Cait, Andy),

• And still haven’t beat any them at ping pong...

So. Much has changed. And much has remained.

I figured now was as good a time as any to take the leap away from a salaried position. (More on that in a future email).

Now what?

What started as a hobby mid last year has become something of an obsession:

Shooting things. And people.

On film that is, with a vintage Mamiya RZ67 medium format camera.

The RZ is a heavy, Japanese-made studio camera.

It's what they’d shoot Vogue portraits on before digital, and one of my most cherished tools.

Shooting portraits, especially of makers and craftsmen has been a real joy.

I love learning how things get made traditionally, and the vintage photographic process lends itself to these old crafts beautifully.

This recent photo of my father, Philip Mergard in his workshop in September is testament to what the RZ can capture in a portrait — Captured on Kodak TriX 400 film:

Or this one of Blacksmith and Knife Making friend, Tom Roy grinding at his bench in May — Captured on Kodak Portra 400 film:

Despite the RZ's heft, it hasn’t stopped me from taking it all the way to remote, Far North Queensland (Mornington Island).

Nor have I dared leave it behind on any decent hiking trip for the past year.

The visual quality of the images it produces are hard to beat.

You’ve seen the shots I share on Insta, but none of that compares to seeing them printed and framed large-scale.

The Mornington piece is a favourite.

The first gallery-grade photograph I’ve produced.

I’m excited for the next batch.

Going places. Shooting people.

And since Instagram doesn’t cut it, I’ve launched reubenmergard.com

A visual journal: for my photos, designs and ideas,but most of all I’m most excited about the store.

Ever since I was young, I’ve loved making gifts for friends and family by hand.

The store will allow me to do this at scale.

Live in time for Christmas, it will host a variety of objects across a range of prices.

You’ll hear about it here first, on the newsletter.

So check out the website and let me know what you think (view on desktop for the best experience).

P.S. I love traffic cones. And most road signs.

They’re the epitome of good design demanding instant recognition.

For the fellow cone lovers (you know who you are), check out these:

Generated today using Open AI's DALL.E 2: An artificial intelligence visual art program. All I did was type in a prompt (), DALL.E did the rest... What a time to be alive.

Send me a reply if this sparked any ideas for you. I'm keen to hear what you're up to, creatively and otherwise.

Thanks for reading.

Reuben