Ariel Biggerstaff is the owner of Fond Printed Goods, which has earned a following for its bold, retro-inspired designs. Biggerstaff earned her BFA from UMSL in 2015. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)
Ariel Biggerstaff loves to see how people light up when they see her designs. Whether it’s an icy Aperol Spritz accompanied by funky typography, an image of bright yellow daffodils peeking out against a serene pink backdrop or a playful green caterpillar wiggling across the frame, her designs for Fond Printed Goods feature bright, bold colors and retro-inspired designs that often stop passersby right in their tracks.
“I hope that it gives them a sense of happiness and just brightens their day a little bit,” Biggerstaff says. “When I’m doing events or pop-ups for Fond, I always love seeing people’s reactions to my work – their facial expressions and how it resonates with that person. I always love to hear, ‘Oh, this would be perfect for so and so,’ or ‘This is perfect for my kid’s room,’ or something like that. It always seems like it makes them so happy, and I love to see that.”
Biggerstaff has loved design from an early age, from rearranging her childhood bedroom and creating her MySpace page to playing around with different media such as photography and ceramics in high school. Participating in her school’s art club helped her dip her toes into different art forms and pinpoint her interest in design.
After high school, Biggerstaff pursued her associate degree in art at Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville, Illinois, where she enrolled in her first graphic design course. She loved experimenting with typography, learning about the history of certain fonts and understanding how different fonts convey different types of feelings. After just one course, her professor referred her to the University of Missouri–St. Louis, which, as she says, is “where it all started.”
Many of Fond’s prints, which often highlight food and drinks, feature funky typography.
Biggerstaff credits UMSL with helping her develop her passion for graphic design, likening the atmosphere in the BFA program to a “little family.” Over a decade later, she still talks to many of her peers and professors and says faculty members Jen McKnight and Gretchen Schisla had a major influence on her career. McKnight, for instance, pushed her out of her comfort zone and helped her discover her own personal design style. She was also a great resource as Biggerstaff started looking for internships and getting her foot in the door in the design industry. Schisla, who oversaw Biggerstaff’s senior thesis project, helped her feel more confident about her work and how she explains that work to others, particularly when it comes to client-facing calls and presentations.
“Some of my fondest memories are just being in class, collaborating with my peers and being able to help each other and critique each other’s work,” Biggerstaff says. “I think that really helped me become the designer that I am today. Just being able to communicate with other peers in person and offer critiques to their work, and their critiques to my work, really helped me understand design and how things can evolve and change.”
After graduating from UMSL in 2015, Biggerstaff worked at a local design firm for nearly a decade. But around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, she found herself feeling uninspired and wanting to make a change. With more free time on her hands, she turned to design as a creative outlet to explore her love of geometric patterns and illustrations. Fond Printed Goods originally started as just a few rough illustrations inspired by the bold colors and simple shapes of mid-century modern design. One of her first designs, for instance, took inspiration from the pandemic, encouraging viewers to slow down and enjoy life’s moments. The typographic print features the words “slow down” in a wave, serving as a reminder to slow down while in the midst of a busy life.
Once Biggerstaff made an Instagram page for her illustrations, her business quickly took off, and she began experimenting with making her own art prints. In 2021, she purchased her own high-quality digital printer and made an Etsy page for Fond. Once pandemic restrictions began loosening, she started bringing her prints to local markets, where her vibrant designs with funky typography, bold colors and retro-inspired illustrations quickly caught shoppers’ attention. It didn’t take long for her to realize that Fond had the potential to be something much bigger.
“I was heavily inspired by mid-century modern design and how simple and colorful it was – how they could take simple illustrations and make them super impactful,” Biggerstaff says. “I would describe my style now as fun, colorful and relatable. People get a little excited and happy when they see certain prints of mine. My designs are usually inspired by my everyday life, like my favorite foods and drinks, or even just taking a walk and snapping a photo of a flower. I have a full flower collection, and a lot of those came about from just seeing them in person.”
Over the next few years, Biggerstaff continued to grow the business, attending more regional markets, creating her own website – where she sells greeting cards, prints, stickers and gift wrap – and doing freelance work for businesses around St. Louis. In 2024, she officially took the leap and made Fond her full-time job. Committing herself to the business allowed her to participate in even more regional markets, take on larger freelance projects and start offering wholesale to stockists in St. Louis and across the country. Currently, Fond designs are in 30-plus stores nationwide, including Anchovy Book Co., Reservoir Books, Urban Matter and Union Studio in the St. Louis area.
Freelance projects weren’t initially part of Biggerstaff’s plans for Fond, but they’re now one of her favorite parts of the business. She enjoys collaborating with clients on custom illustrations and stationery and working with small businesses to create the look of their brand. She’s designed the branding for Anchovy Book Co. on Cherokee Street, for instance, including creating a custom font for the cookbook store, and also designed a full rebrand for a floral shop in San Francisco. She’s worked closely with the Missouri Botanical Garden on several projects as well, including a foldaway tote illustrated with different flowers at the Garden and an umbrella featuring an illustrated map of the Garden that will be available later this year.
Biggerstaff recently collaborated with the Missouri Botanical Garden on a membership tote featuring illustrations of flowers in the garden.
Kate Gleason, MOBOT’s director of membership, was drawn to Fond’s unique font style and bold, fun and colorful designs, many of which feature flowers such as asters, tulips, poppies and Japanese anemone. For membership gifts, the garden typically relies on photographs or historic botanical prints, but she felt that collaborating with a local artist such as Biggerstaff would especially appeal to younger members. While working with Biggerstaff on the membership tote and umbrella, she enjoyed seeing how her modern, playful style translated through different areas of the Garden.
“Even though her designs are fairly simple – with the tote bag, it’s just pretty flowers – she was so attentive to choose flowers that were Missouri natives, which is such a big part of what the Garden is about,” Gleason says. “So it’s not as simple as her designs just being fun and playful. For the umbrella, she made sure that we have the cherry blossoms in the right place, for instance. So even while it’s playful, everything’s very intentional. And that was what was so fun. You could tell she had a ball going around the Garden and being really thoughtful in her selection.”
While Biggerstaff’s designs remain rooted in the simple, colorful nature of mid-century modern design, she has started to introduce more sketching into her work, as evidenced in a recent line of Valentine’s Day cards that featured her own sketches of a bumblebee, a cup of tea and a pair of doves. She’s enjoying experimenting with a new way of designing and is excited about how her designs will evolve in the future.
As Fond continues to grow, she hopes to expand her wholesale accounts across the country and start exploring letterpress. She found a vintage letterpress machine on Facebook Marketplace and plans to start offering products such as recipe cards, coasters, notecards and mini calendars. She’s energized by the opportunity to design vibrant, joy-filled products that have deep personal meaning, but at the same time also strike a chord with customers across the country. “Fond has really turned into my full-time job now, and I love that I’m able to sit down, design and be creative, and make something new that I’m able to also sell as a product,” she says. “I think that is awesome, and it makes me feel so good to have time and space to be able to do that. It’s rewarding to see how the designs resonate with people but also how it makes me feel as well.”
This story was originally published in the spring 2026 issue of UMSL Magazine. If you have a story idea for UMSL Magazine, email magazine@umsl.edu.
