Shelbyville studio - Brisbane, Australia

Hi, I’m Michelle Vandermeer, a Brisbane-based designer whose work currently encompasses graphic design, bookbinding, artist books, paper collage and illustration, basically whatever creative work can be squeezed in around being a full-time mum of two little boys.

Pre-kids, I was based in Sydney where I developed a line of handmade products and stationery under the brand Shelbyville, an off-spin of my blog of 10 years. ‘Shelbyville’ started out as a design market venture, had products stocked in retail stores around Australia, and now incorporates several online retail stores (including Etsy and MadeIt.com).

Shelbyville products are an eclectic mix of the old and the new, inspired by and created from vintage imagery, ‘found things’, children’s games, and an array of recycled materials. The Shelbyville philosophy is one of reappropriating old things and redesigning them into contemporary items – typewriter keys recycled into jewellery pieces and packaged in vintage typewriter ribbon tins; handbound leather journals crafted from an assortment of found papers and upcycled leather; collages and papery goods created from the reworking of old books, sheet music, vintage storybook imagery, cigar bands, banknotes, postage stamps, and ephemera galore.

My most recent creative work is an intriguing crossover between bookbinding and collage – I use ‘found’ papers and ephemera as a distinctive feature within my handmade books, and I then go on to use the trimmed offcuts as the basis of collaged artworks, reappropriating these snippets of history to create both contemporary books and works of art simultaneously.