Flowers are the part everyone sees. The card is the part that gets kept. We have added a pen worth writing it with, and this is the Sydney designer who drew it.
There is a drawer in most houses. Not a filing system, just a drawer, and in it are the cards nobody could bring themselves to throw out. A birth. A funeral. A first flat. Twenty words in someone's handwriting, still legible ten years later.
Which makes the usual ratio strange. A sender will spend twenty minutes choosing an arrangement, then write the message in four seconds with whatever pen was on the bench. The flowers last a week. The four seconds last a decade.
This is about the pen we have added so that part gets the same attention, and about the woman whose drawings are on it.
Who is Typoflora?
Typoflora is a floral stationery design studio, founded in Sydney in 2016 by designer Shannon Cheung.
Everything in the range starts as a hand-drawn botanical illustration set against elegant type: greeting cards, art prints, notebooks, yearly planners, tea towels, tote bags. The studio produces in small batches and works with ethical suppliers in Australia wherever it can. Ten years on from that first drawing, Typoflora is carried by more than 700 retailers in Australia, the USA, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Canada.
The short version: one person's drawings, on a great deal of paper.
How does a wedding invitation become a business?
It began because she could not buy what she wanted.
Shannon studied design at the University of New South Wales and spent the first decade of her career inside a commercial textile studio, drawing bespoke prints for fashion and swimwear labels. It is unglamorous training and it is the best kind: a textile print has to repeat cleanly, survive being scaled, and still look effortless on a body in motion. You learn restraint, or the work fails in production.
"Working in fashion and swimwear taught me a lot about finding the balance between my own creative ideas and what people respond to. When you are designing prints for a commercial market, you are always thinking about colour, trends and what will appeal to customers, and that is something I still consider every day."
Then she planned her own wedding, went looking for stationery that matched what was in her head, and found nothing. So she drew the invitation herself: a spring arrangement of peonies, orchids, paper daisies and succulents (succulents, she notes, were a big trend back then). She still has a copy. The niche she had been circling for ten years turned out to be sitting between the two things she already knew: botanical illustration, and type.
The market instincts from those textile years never left, but running her own name required unlearning part of the job at the same time.
"I have had to unlearn the idea that my work needs to be created purely for the market. Typoflora is my personal brand, so it needs to reflect who I am, my taste and my way of seeing nature. I want to create designs that I genuinely love, while also sharing that love of design with other people."
What does "hand illustrated" actually mean here?
It means every flower on a Typoflora product began as a drawing made by hand. Not a photograph, not a trace, not a generated image.
That distinction has quietly become worth stating, now that hand-drawn work sits alongside images generated in seconds.
"Every Typoflora illustration starts with my own hand drawing. The concept, the composition and the original artwork are all created by me, and nothing is generated online. That handmade beginning is an important part of what makes Typoflora feel personal. I think customers appreciate knowing that there is a person behind the illustration, and that the designs have come from observing, drawing and developing an idea over time."
The pattern discipline from the textile years is visible in the work: the flowers are dense and detailed, but they sit in composed space rather than filling it, and the type never fights the drawing for attention.
Her subjects run from poppies and peonies to waratah and wattle, and she is refreshingly plain about where she goes when a drawing will not come.
"I like to go to flower markets or spend time outdoors trying to spot new plants and flowers. Sometimes I will pop in to my favourite florists for some inspiration."
We recognise that entirely. Her stated favourites are banksias, wattles and flannel flowers, which puts her taste close to our own: the Australian native flowers we cut most often are the ones that hold their shape and reward a second look, and the rise of Australian natives has been the most genuine shift in what people send in the last decade. Her drawings and our benches are looking at the same plants, a few hours apart. She is candid, too, about why natives take longer to get right than a rose or a peony ever will.
"Flowers like banksias have such interesting structures, shapes and intricate details. Capturing the softness and the complexity of the blooms takes a lot of observation. I often need to spend more time studying a native flower before I can interpret it on paper, but that is also what makes it so rewarding."
Every flower on a Typoflora product began as a drawing made by hand.
Shannon Cheung on the drawing process:
“Everything starts with pen and paper. Once the original drawing is finished, I bring it into the computer to clean up the artwork, add colour and prepare it for the final product, which usually takes another couple of days. So although the finished artwork may look quite polished digitally, the foundation is always the original hand drawing.”
Shannon on the rollerball:
“The rollerball pen has such a small surface area, so I was quite particular about how the illustration was positioned. I wanted to make sure we could show as much of the flower artwork as possible.”
What does it take to keep drawing everything yourself, ten years in?
Typoflora is still, at its core, one illustrator. Every design in a range now carried by hundreds of retailers across six countries starts on the same desk it always has, which is exactly the tension Shannon lives with.
"I genuinely love drawing and creating products, so one of the hardest parts has been learning that growing the business also means taking on many roles beyond being an illustrator. There are so many parts of running a business that happen behind the scenes, from production and logistics to wholesale and administration. Sometimes I would much rather be sitting at my desk drawing! Learning to balance the creative side with the business side has definitely been a journey."
Why is a florist selling a pen?
Because the card is the only part of a flower gift that survives, and most people write it with whatever is nearest.
Handwriting is the one element of a sent gift that is physically the sender. The arrangement is chosen, the delivery is arranged, the timing is managed. The note is made. It carries pressure, hurry, care, the crossing out and rewriting. It is the reason a card written on the kitchen bench outperforms anything printed, every time.
A good pen does not make anyone a better writer. It does something smaller and more useful: it slows the hand down by about a second per word. That second is where the second thought arrives, the one that turns "congratulations" into the sentence they keep.
Shannon has seen the same instinct play out with her own illustrations. People do not just buy them, they keep them.
"I have had customers send me photos of Typoflora art prints hanging in their homes, which is always incredibly special. I have also seen people cut out the illustrations from their calendars once the year has finished and frame them on their walls. One customer has over ten framed artworks on the wall."
It is also the kind of object that stays. A rollerball sits on a desk and gets picked up for a year, which is a longer relationship than most gifts manage. Add one to a card and the pair does something a bouquet alone cannot: it hands the recipient the means to write the next one.
Which colourway suits which send?
Four designs, one pen. Stainless steel body with metallic detailing, refillable 0.5 mm tip, black ink, and a full-colour illustrated box that means it needs no wrapping.
| Colourway | The palette | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Sage Botanical | Soft greens and foliage | The quiet, considered send. Thank you, and anything you want to read as calm |
| Blooms in Pink | Warm pinks | Birthdays, new babies, the send with obvious affection in it |
| Blooms in Blue | Cool blues | The one for someone whose desk you have seen. Reads as design object, not gift |
| Blooms in White | White and neutral | The safest of the four. When you do not know their taste and would rather not guess |
If you are choosing for someone whose home you have never been inside, take the white. If you have, take the one that matches the room.
The pen that makes the four seconds count.
Typoflora rollerball, refillable, in an illustrated box. $18.50. Shop the Sage Botanical →
How to write a card that sounds like you
- Name the specific thing. "Four years of night classes" beats "congratulations" every time.
- Write it once, badly, on paper you are going to throw away. The second attempt is always the one to send.
- Keep it under forty words. A short note that says one true thing lands harder than a long one hedging.
- Do not sign off with the same phrase you use in emails. It is the tell that the card was written at work.
- Post it, or send it with the flowers, and stop rereading it.
If the words are not coming, our guide to what to write on a flower card has openings for most occasions, including the difficult ones.
Frequently asked questions
Is Typoflora an Australian brand?
Yes. Typoflora is a stationery design studio based in Sydney, founded in 2016 by designer Shannon Cheung. All illustration and design is done in Australia, and the studio works with ethical suppliers in Australia wherever possible.
Where are the Typoflora rollerball pens made?
The illustration and design are Shannon's, done in Sydney. The pens themselves are manufactured in China and ship to you from Australia in a full-colour illustrated box.
Are the pens refillable?
Yes. Each pen takes a standard 0.5 mm rollerball refill in black ink, so it is not a single-use object. The body is stainless steel with metallic detailing.
What else does Typoflora make?
Greeting cards, art prints, notebooks, yearly planners, tea towels and tote bags, all carrying the same hand-drawn botanical illustration. Shannon's work has also appeared with Jurlique, Australia Post and ANZ.
Can I add a pen to a flower delivery?
Yes. The pen travels in the same box as the flowers and needs no wrapping, which makes it a straightforward addition to any arrangement.
The flowers will be finished by next Sunday. The card will not. Send something considered, write the note by hand, and let the drawer do the rest.
