Meowing Mermaids quickly became an instant office favorite. We have quite a lot of cat-ladies on the Printfresh team, Christiane (our Art Director and Print Designer) has two cats of her own, and our Senior Marketing Manager actively gives back to her community by TNRing and fostering stray cats in Philadelphia. I myself am a cat person, but unfortunately my husband is terribly allergic so we don’t currently have one as a pet. As a child I pretty much exclusively made cat art for years, until I finally convinced my parents to get me a long haired cat which I adored.
Design + DIY
Behind the Print: Meowing Mermaids
Best worn for cat naps, the legend of the Meowing Mermaids is quite a tail. These sunbathing kitties can be spotted on the shores of not-so-far-away lands wetting their whiskers with the freshest of fish.
By Amy Voloshin
July 2022
Behind the Print: Meowing Mermaids
When we came up with the idea of a cat-mermaid print we had a lot of laughs and plenty of encouragement. We love mermaids and since our Daughters of Triton pattern is such a hit we thought it would be especially fun to bring our two loves together in a magical and unexpected way. Mythical creatures (including mermaids) are some of our favorite subjects to paint, and we love anything with a coastal vibe. Something tells me this won’t be the last mermaid we introduce into our collections…
Initially I’d imagined the “mercats” being very active, but then Christiane started working and painted the sweet little motif of the cat curled up with her eyes closed. I always love unexpected colors, and lavender seemed like a fun hue to make the ground and ‘water.' Not to mention it makes the gold and teal colors used throughout really pop!
We had already designed this print long before April Fool’s Day. So when we had the idea to celebrate by introducing a fake print, our in-house Photographer Matt made the daring suggestion of flipping the two animal elements to make the Catfish print. Although it gave us the chills just thinking about it - we thought it was a hilarious alteration, Christiane and our Graphic Designer Bea had a blast making the silly print and photoshopping it onto a couple of our model photos. If you loved the Catfish print, we know you’ll absolutely adore the Meowing Mermaids!
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