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Tags: Most Creative People, 2011, Laura Ching, Most Creative People, Tiny Prints, Leadership

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By Fast Company Staff | 05-23-2011 | 4:53 PM

Two main sources and two generations of inspiration—my free-spirited daughter Sophie and my artistic, vivacious mom, Barbara!

Inspired by the frustration of planning her own wedding, Laura Ching started Tiny Prints, an online stationery company that sells personalized greeting cards and invitations. With Tiny Prints now humming, here's a look at some of the things that continue to inspire her, in her own words....

So much of our job at Tiny Prints is allowing people to feel like Martha Stewart without doing all the work. When it comes to my personal life and my children, I sometimes can’t help myself! For my son Nate’s 5th birthday party, we had an old-fashioned carnival with games at our house. I bought fun, bright IKEA fabrics and turned this into a fun arts and crafts project for the family.

Read more about Laura Ching of Tiny Prints

Whenever I’m in New York, I always hit Barney’s and one of my first stops is the Bottega Veneta boutique. I’m such of huge fan of this label’s timeless style. It’s a classic brand with a chic, new, modern perspective, which equates well to Tiny Prints and our customer base. I snapped this store signage the last time I was at Barney’s--it was most appropriate for a big trend in typography we’re seeing in stationery.

Whenever our customers start to play it safe and choose expected colors, I look to this wedding favor (a flower-shaped cheesecake) my husband and I gave our guests at the end of our wedding celebration and I’m reminded of stand-out color and the power, confidence and vivaciousness it represents.

I recently discovered this dish at Solage in Calistoga during a recent girls getaway weekend with my business school girlfriends. This cream cheese and lox breakfast was to die for and the presentation made me want to eat it all the more. What a great analogy of what we want to accomplish at Tiny Prints. It’s not good enough to just have a quality product. We have to support this with an easy, visually stunning purchase experience that inspires our customers.

On a winter weekend trip to Vegas with the family, I looked up at the Palazzo ceiling and it had holiday inspiration written all over it. We’re constantly drawing upon pieces of beautiful architecture and home décor when creating our stationery designs.

My brother was touring Madrid and discovered this amazing shoe market. I love how each pair of shoes is unique and yet relates to the one next to it. It reminds me of the challenge of taking a simple best selling graphic element or color and tweaking it in just the right way to stay fresh and relevant for our customers.

Something fun and creative happens at Tiny Prints every day. On this particular day, we celebrated one of our colleague’s birthdays with personal notes from everyone on the merchandising team. They ranged from witty to sweet and sentimental. I love how our team rallies around each other. Our support system here is truly inspiring.

Courtesy of Laura ChingCourtesy of Laura ChingCourtesy of Laura ChingCourtesy of Laura ChingCourtesy of Laura ChingCourtesy of Laura ChingCourtesy of Laura ChingCourtesy of Laura Ching

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