Direction•Design•Illustration
Paperhaul Stationary
Film Noir Writing Sets
Location
Edinburgh, UK
Brief
Design a coordinated stationery collection for Paperhaul members featuring a stylized 1940s film noir aesthetic with a feminine twist. Develop custom designs for washi tape, postcards, gift tags, and stickers that integrate period-appropriate typography, shadow-play imagery, and elegant color palettes to create a cohesive, retro-chic product line.
Tools
Hand-Rendered, Adobe Illustrator & Adobe Photoshop
Paperhaul by Crafty Creatives is the ultimate subscription box for stationery lovers. Each month, you’ll receive a curated selection of beautifully designed stationery items and an exclusive roll of custom washi tape, all created in collaboration with a different featured illustrator.
This stationery box followed a stylized Film Noir theme, inspired by 1940s design, Mad Men-era elegance, and femme fatales - with a feminine, modern twist. The collection includes hand-drawn elements on postcards and stickers, combined with bold, digital aesthetics for cards and prints.
...high-quality, themed, design-led postcards, tags, stickers, craft papers and more...
Postcard Set
This collection of Film Noir–inspired postcards was created exclusively for Paperhaul members as part of a coordinated stationery set. Each postcard features two illustrated panels that capture a cinematic moment, drawing on familiar noir archetypes such as the femme fatale and the flawed hero. By referencing these classic storytelling tropes, the designs explore themes of tension, morality, and ambiguity, while reimagining them through a contemporary lens.
Rendered in a bold comic-book style, the postcards combine strong linework and stylized shadows to evoke the atmosphere of 1940s noir cinema. Each design hints at a larger narrative while leaving space for the viewer to imagine how the story unfolds. Together with the accompanying washi tape, gift tags, and stickers, this postcard series showcases how illustration and graphic design can transform everyday stationery into a collectible storytelling medium.
Washi Tape
The Film Noir–inspired washi tape design features iconic motifs such as the smoking gun, elegant earrings, and bold lipstick, all rendered as clean vector illustrations. These details add a cinematic touch to the stationery collection, complementing the postcards, gift tags, and stickers while reinforcing the collection’s stylized, narrative-driven aesthetic.
This edition marked the first Paperhaul box to include custom-designed washi tape, created in collaboration with a specialist supplier. Previously, the boxes featured generic patterns, but this unique, artist-designed tape elevated the unboxing experience, bringing a distinctive, collectible quality to the stationery set and highlighting the brand’s commitment to original, thoughtfully crafted design.
Sticker Pack
The sticker set presents a rogues’ gallery of Film Noirinspired characters, including femme fatales, detectives, and shadowy villains. Some designs were directly influenced by classic Film Noir films, while others are original illustrations that reinterpret the genre’s most iconic archetypes.
Each sticker combines bold line-work and stylized shading to evoke the dramatic tension and mystery typical of 1940s noir cinema. Designed to complement the broader Paperhaul stationery collection, the set adds narrative depth and collectible appeal, allowing fans of the genre to bring cinematic storytelling into their everyday stationery.
The Notebook
The notebook cover design draws inspiration from classic Film Noir title cards and typography, blending cinematic style with contemporary illustration. After extensive research into the genre’s visual language, the design incorporates a 3D relief effect that adds depth and texture, enhancing the overall aesthetic of the collection.
This approach ties directly into the broader concept of storytelling across the Paperhaul stationery set, where each piece - from postcards to stickers - uses visual elements to convey narrative. The notebook cover not only complements the Film Noir theme but also reinforces the collection’s cohesive, stylized identity.
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