How nice is Rob Ryan?

I am a bit of a sticky tape fiend, so when I came across this design by UK paper artist Rob Ryan, I ordered it instantly. I love the wistful, wintry scene it depicts – with the lone presence of one person, walking the street with nothing but their echoing thoughts for company. It's more like a beautiful, unscrolling artwork than a functional roll of stationery.



I was very keyed up about getting this, but with the Royal Mail dispute, I thought I wouldn't receive it for a while. And yet, not only did it arrive quite swiftly – there were some other surprises in the package, too.

First, some cute badges from Rob Ryan's studio – one with the reassuring mantra, "everything is going to be OK"



Then, a gorgeous card on lovely stock, emblazoned with a joyous paper-cut-style print: "Thank you for life and thank you from Rob Ryan's studio".

Inside, instead of the usual robotically-printed 'thanks for your order' response, was a personally scrawled message saying, "I hope you are well & I hope you enjoy this tape", signed Rob!



How nice is that? I think it's always the little touches and above-and-beyond flourishes that people don't have to do – and yet end up including – that make things that much more heartfelt and memorable.

If, like me, you're hopeless about decorative tape, you can see more designs on Rob Ryan's Etsy, where his incredible paper prints are also available. Thanks to the studio for all those lovely postal surprises – and also our creative director Tracy for championing his work in the magazine, otherwise Rob Ryan's talent would sadly be unknown to me.

Lee Tran, deputy chief sub-editor