The Creative Connection

Curly Girl Design is the brainchild of artist Leigh Standley, who combines her design talent with the ability to write witty statements on love, friendship and a host of other topics to create beautiful works of art. Her designs adorn Curly Girl’s line of greeting cards, magnets, sticky notes, journals, buttons and more. Born and raised in St. Louis, Leigh says she got her start in seventh grade where she spent more time doodling and less time learning the quadratic equation. Poor marks in math notwithstanding, she went on to earn a degree in Visual Communications from the University of Kansas. Following her formal education, Leigh worked as an art director, in the marketing field and as the manager of a yoga studio before beginning what would become Curly Girl Design. Working from the attic space of her Boston-area apartment, she designed cards, shipped orders and developed the company. A lot has changed since its humble beginnings in 2003. Curly Girl now has its own warehouse space and boasts a lively group of worker bees and friends. You can find Curly Girl products in all fifty states and around the world, too, thanks to our international distributors. Curly Girl has also been chosen twice (2006 and 2010) for a coveted LOUIE Award, the Oscars of the greeting card industry. As a company that deals with a lot of paper, Curly Girl believes in being green. To that end, greeting cards are printed on recycled paper using soy-based inks at a printer based in New England. Many Curly Girl cards, journals, art boards and magnetic notepads are even printed on machines that run on wind power! The future looks bright for Curly Girl with an ever-expanding line, a delightful fan base and plans to enlarge its warehouse to make room for more goodies. Leigh and her crew are truly fulfilling the company motto: “Send love.”