Fotofibre: memories that accompany everyday life

When you mix photography with textile printing, you get Fotofibre . This company is the idea of ​​Vanessa Isabelle-Roy who was tired of the cheesy memories found in the Old Port of Montreal. She wanted to create beautiful souvenir objects that accompany the daily lives of both tourists and citizens.

Montreal as a starting point

During her studies in textile printing, Vanessa learned to use sublimation, a process that allows photos to be transposed onto different supports. She found the technique versatile and very interesting. For fun, she and a friend studying photography did some photo printing tests. The result was conclusive and this is how the collection of emblems of Montreal was born. Four years later, Vanessa still uses the same process, but she transposes the photos to a variety of other media, such as sleeves and travel journals.

The importance of local

Local consumption has always been part of Vanessa's values. Since high school, she no longer makes purchases in large distribution companies such as Wal-Mart. The same goes for the choice of its suppliers: it makes no sense for it to do business with people elsewhere in the world when we have the resources at home. She is nevertheless aware that in the field of textiles, not everything is in Quebec. She sometimes has to get her supplies from elsewhere in Canada.

Nova Scotia Collection (Credit: fotofibre.com)

Being a small artisan business that does everything locally and sources nothing overseas is an additional challenge. Vanessa points out that "you have to be creative in the way you do business, both in terms of products and marketing, as well as in all other facets". This creativity is very important to Vanessa, but not only as an artist. The entrepreneur must wear different hats in the business in order to find solutions to the many problems that may arise.

Discovering Canada

KA.NA.DA is the new project that makes Vanessa vibrate. At the beginning of the year, she carried out a crowdfunding campaign to acquire a van. On board, she will travel across Canada to take photos and create new collections. This journey will allow the entrepreneur to explore, find new points of sale and meet suppliers. The company started its photos with the city of Montreal, but the more time passes, the more people want to see their city represented on an object. Vanessa sees the project as an excellent opportunity: “I put my project of having a van to the benefit of my company. During this two-year trip, she will be accompanied by her new partner, Samuel G. Lafrenière , photographer. Their meeting was a coincidence and they soon began to discuss their photo projects. There was a fit between the two and they realized that they shared the same vision of entrepreneurship.

Projects, Vanessa has a ton. If the KA.NA.DA project works as she wants, she would like to apply the same model to another place, for example in the United States. She tells me, her voice sparkling, that it could be a life project because the world is huge and there could be a collection for each country!

Stay tuned, as Vanessa's departure is scheduled for next April. We bet that we will be entitled to beautiful images! Consult his profile to find out where to get his beautiful memories.

Reviewed By Melanie