by Jenny Bachynski | Rebecca Dolen & Brandy Fedoruk are the co- owners and designers behind The Regional Assembly of Text at 3934 Main Street. The charming store is filled with beautifully designed stationary, books, and other items that delight. With text being the theme and driving inspiration behind the store, the result is a gorgeously curated space filled with vintage filing cabinets, typewriters, and high school lockers. The Regional Assembly of Text instantly gives you feelings of nostalgia that are strong enough to make you want to ditch your laptop and pick up a pencil again. Being a bit obsessed with typography myself, I was very excited to hear from the experts and learn about the details of their growing business…

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Tell us a bit about yourselves and how The Regional Assembly of Text came to be? We met at Emily Carr while doing our Visual Arts degrees. Sharing similar aesthetics and entrepreneurial desires, we teamed up to create The Regional Assembly of Text in 2005. We both did a lot of book making and screen printing and opening a store (and studio) where we could focus on designing and making things sounded like an idea worth pursuing.

The interior of your store is so beautiful and has a very lovely vintage atmosphere. What was the process of putting the store together like? We loved coming up with the décor of our store. We salvaged a lot of the furnishings from an old high schools that was getting torn down, as well as from surplus auctions and thrift stores. We often talk about opening another space, just so we can design and renovate.

Would you say the majority of the items in your store are The Regional Assembly of Text brand, made and designed in house? We try to design as many products as possible. All of our cards and wrapping paper and gift boxes are done in house. We also do some screen printing and book making and lots of assembling. We do carry products from other companies that we love as well.

The two of you started out at Emily Carr University of Art and Design together. How has owning a small business changed you as artists? Most of our time for the past 7 years has been dedicated to The Assembly of Text and it’s needs. Our art practices have turned into a lot of design work for the store, which is fun and rewarding. As for other projects, we both still enjoy publishing a silly artist book or two a year.

Co-owning a successful business often means finding the perfect balance. How do the two of you collaborate and develop your strengths and talents? We do a lot of brain storming and problem solving together, but work pretty independently. Business tasks get divided by our strengths. Rebecca gets quite a rush from balancing the books, and Brandy types at lightning speed and answers emails with ease. The rest of our tasks we learn as we go, and get better over time.

What is another local business in Vancouver that you admire? We sure do love Collage Collage.

You started the Letter Writing Club in 2005, which I think is such a unique idea. Can you tell us a bit about that? When we opened, we knew we wanted to have a monthly event open to the public. Letter writing seemed like the perfect fit for our store, especially since we both love writing and receiving mail. It is nice to think that we are responsible for thousands of letters going through the mail system. It has become quite a popular event and we get a lot of press because of it…which we are grateful for.

What has been the biggest highlight for The Regional Assembly of Text since opening its doors? The biggest highlight for us has been that we can continue to do what we love, and more recently, when Stuart McLean became a member of our “one book a month club”.

With Valentine’s Day coming up, what would be your top gift idea for someone running into the store last minute? One of our sweet and thoughtful cards perhaps, and a custom button to proclaim your love.

If Vancouver was a font, which one would you be? We can’t speak for Vancouver, but a couple of our favourite fonts these days are Typo American and Commercial Script.

Find out more about The Regional Assembly of Text at www.assemblyoftext.com.

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Jenny Bachynski was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. In her teenage years she packed up her bags and headed to Vancouver to pursue further education in fashion design. In 2009 she started her own small business Jenny Andrews Recycled Leather Goods, as well as her blog Jenny Loves. After starting her blog, Jenny discovered that one of her greatest joys was stumbling upon beautiful and interesting things, and sharing them with anyone who would listen.

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