Susan Hazel Rich had to combine ink colors very carefully to come up with the perfect hues for her Blue Gentian design, to be printed on tea towels, greeting cards and more.
“Blue Gentian is actually our best-selling towel since it launched. It’s just a really stunning design,” says the founder and creative director of Hazelmade of the floral print, representing a flower found in Ohio parks. “It was the trickiest ink colors that I’ve ever had to mix.”
Founded by Rich in 2014, Hazelmade sells functional items such as tea towels, note cards and greeting cards, all featuring whimsical, often botanical illustrations. Spring florals, lemons, poppies, herbs and more decorate goods.
Rich went to Kent State University, graduating with a degree in visual communication design in 2006. After school, she worked in branding, publishing and magazine design before starting her own branding company. She began working with product-based businesses — and, around 2014, realized she wanted to follow suit. Rich gradually began working on Hazelmade, in the evenings and on weekends, while working full time with her clients during the day.
“I was creating these illustrations, scanning them in and just printing out the black outlines because I didn’t have money for the color ink cartridges, so I was coloring them in with colored pencils,” says Rich, “and then started selling the greeting cards, and everything just tumbles from there.”
By 2019, Hazelmade became her full- time job, and in 2021, she opened a Hazelmade studio in downtown Kent.
Rich’s creative process starts with sketching — it usually takes several sketches to create one piece of artwork.
“A lot of my work is these collaged motifs, where it’s like the farmers market, and there’s all these different elements woven together in this perfect pattern,” she says. “I’m actually individually drawing those pieces, so I’ll draw five to 50 carrots, five to 50 kidney beans and five to 50 radishes, and then I’ll refine and sort of select the one perfect carrot, and that’s all done by hand.”
Those drawings are scanned into the computer, and a collage is digitally pieced together. The pattern is printed out — then Rich uses tracing paper and a layering technique to refine the motif, by hand, into its final design. The design is scanned back into the computer and digitized through drawing each pixel and point in a design program, digitally colored and then, finally, screen printed onto fabric and produced on paper.
“We’re using a water-based ink, so each individual color is printed through a separate … printing process,” she says. “The yellow ink on the lemons has to be laid down first, and then the green ink of the leaves around the lemons is laid down through a separate ink process.”
Hazelmade’s cornerstone product is tea towels.
“What I like about designing the towels is that they’re really about the intersection of a sort of vintage nostalgic piece and also a modern aesthetic,” says Rich. “I’m borrowing elements from those stories that we have in our cupboards. The china pattern that everyone’s grandma had, the picking the strawberries in the summer because you live in the Midwest, tomato season and knowing the smell of tomatoes on the vine — all of that is what’s inspiring me.”
At markets such as Kent’s Art in the Park Sept. 12 and 13, find Hazelmade’s booth, selling towels and paper goods in prints including popular tomatoes as well as sardines. Hazelmade is in select stores nationwide. All goods are produced in small batches and quality checked by hand.
“I love that with Hazelmade, I get to dig into the details,” Rich says. “All of my production partners are other family-owned businesses. They’re often women-led, and they’re all right here in the Midwest.”
Customers find themselves moved by Hazelmade’s designs. One design, of a mason jar with flowers in it, was originally created around 2015, when the jars were on-trend. But, even after the trend passed, the design kept selling — so much so that Rich updated it.
“I was just at a market, and a customer said to me, When I look at this, with these particular yellow flowers in it, I can smell the well water,” she recalls. “What I create isn’t on its own particularly unique or special, but because I am so deeply interested in stories, memories and nostalgia … other people see that.”
shophazelmade.com
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