Every Sunday, Botanical Colors sits down for an interview with a luminary in the natural dye and textile world. Grab a cup of tea and settle in to learning about someone you never knew! Catch up on all our Sunday Visits here.
For this week’s Sunday Visit, we catch up with Katie Forte, the lead designer/artist and creative director of Michigan-based June & December. June & December is an independent design studio and maker of sustainable gifts that tell the wild stories of nature. Their hope is that they can aspire to have their products cultivate a deeper connection with nature.
Named after the birth months of their two children, the June & December products currently include flower presses, collecting kits, herbariums, textiles, art prints, stationery and terrariums. Before founding June & December with partner Nick, Katie worked as an art director, creating TV and print ads for a large Detroit ad agency.
The botanical patterns throughout the June & December products start with Katie’s hand-drawn illustrations before she turns them into patterns for different product applications (like the inside covers of the flower presses and herbarium journals Botanical Colors now carries). She also uses her photography for some of the products like inside this seed collecting kit!
We caught up with Katie to learn more about June & December.
You founded June & December “with an adventurous spirit and the idea that the most memorable gifts have a meaningful story to tell.” Can you talk more about that?
The adventurous spirit speaks to the new path we forged, taking the terrifying leap of going into business almost ten years ago. Adventure is how we like to describe it. It also speaks to the curiosity of the unknown that sparks much of the inspiration behind the goods that we create. The second part, the idea that the most memorable gifts have a meaningful story to tell, is something we believe at our core. Sometimes, that’s when a customer sees a design, let’s say, with monarchs on it, and decides to purchase it because it resonates with them meaningfully, maybe it reminds them of their friend’s journey, or perhaps it reminds them of spending time visiting their loved ones, or maybe they have a passion for pollinators. We love designing and creating products that connect people to nature meaningfully and believe that makes the best gift.
Can you talk about your connection to nature as designers and how that works with your company’s ethos?
We’re passionate about nature, which stems from a deep-seated childhood passion growing up in rural Michigan. I spent much of my childhood summers barefoot among the dirt, exploring the forest and building forts behind my childhood home, picking wildflowers, collecting tiny treasures from nature like seed pods while unintentionally learning about gardening and flowers through my Grandmother’s passion – she lived next door.
When Nick and I got married (21 years ago), I moved away from the rural area where I grew up, quickly realizing how much I took nature for granted. I immediately started seeking ways to weave nature back into my life, which ramped up as I shared the awe and wonder with our children. That helped lead us into June & December. It brings us great joy to see others use our goods to connect to Nature, too! Loving Nature makes us want to conserve and preserve it for generations, which is why, we start our product development with Nature in mind from the beginning of every new product we create.
It begins well before development, just from immersing ourselves in it. Whether designing our packaging with eco-friendly elements or sourcing and partnering with like-minded manufacturers for raw materials, we’re committed to developing sustainable products with our footprint in mind. We’re also members of 1% for the planet, committing to donate 1% of every dollar received back to the earth, focusing our efforts on forest and pollinator conservation and preservation. We also volunteer as a team multiple times a year, helping to plant trees in parks and neighborhoods around the Detroit area so that other people can enjoy their benefits like we did growing up.
What is a favorite product you’ve created and why? (ex. It could be the first product you ever created together or something new you’re just launching!)
I think one of my favorite products is our Specimen Collecting Kit, which we launched in 2019. We now also offer a Seed Collecting Kit, which Botanical Colors now carries, and a Beach Collecting kit that we launched new this year; each is slightly different. It’s one of my favorites because it was a long trial-and-error process with lots of prototyping, a labor of love. The struggle is worth the reward, right?
It was born from a need to preserve, share, and display our nature finds that would often end up long forgotten or ruined in a pocket. I had a collection that began in childhood that I started with my Dad, and it continued to grow with our kids. I was determined to find a solution and wondered how many other people also had pockets filled, so it came to fruition. Last year, we launched our seed-collecting kits for the same reason: preserving and sharing our favorite seeds. It makes our hearts sing that our seed kits are going to good use, helping to grow and sustain beautiful dye gardens. The J&D team assembles each kit meticulously in our studio.
Do you have a favorite color in nature and why do you gravitate towards it?
As far as colors go, earthy colors from nature are my favorite, which is why they are much of our product line’s palette. But if I could choose just one color I gravitate toward, it would be green. Green is my happy place. Here in Michigan, we have very different seasons, and fall through winter, and early spring can be very drab, dark, and grey for an extended period. But a walk in the woods, even with snow on the ground and no leaves on the trees, you can always find patches of different greens in the lichens and mosses! Green is also why our home and studio are abundantly adorned with plants.
Shop June & December!
Seed Collecting Kit by June & December
Fern Herbarium Journal by June & December