Visual Art Design Entrepreneurship
Unicorn Eclipse: Creating All Things Bright and Beautiful
Eau Claire sisters, Hleeda and Chia Lor, share their love of creativity through booming online shop
The popularity of bright and colorful stationery has become a major trend within the last few years. From bullet journals to planners, stationery can be used for many different things.
Sisters Chia and Hleeda Lor, both of Eau Claire, started designing stationery items as a hobby back in 2017, mostly consisting of homemade sticker sheets. The goal was to get back in touch with their creative sides since both majored in graphic design but felt a bit stifled in their work at school.
“Art school was really hard,” Chia said. “I feel like that was stripping away a lot of my creativity and joy for art because everything that you did was for a grade and you needed validation from peers and professors.”
Both Hleeda and Chia are first-generation Hmong college graduates, and they feel it’s important to break barriers when it comes to BIPOC creatives and encourage them to go after their dreams, no matter what that may be.
“I’ve gotten messages from different Hmong people across the country saying ‘I did not know ya’ll were Hmong-owned’ because you just don’t see that a lot,” Chia said. “Especially in the Hmong and Asian community when going into a creative career isn’t usually supported, but honestly that’s just a stigma. We really just love inspiring and motivating any creatives.”
Now, Unicorn Eclipse sells notepads, sticky notes, wash tapes, stickers, prints, magnets, and more, all designed by Chia and Hleeda. They have started selling their products wholesale to stores and other businesses around the country, and are now focusing on their small business full-time.
“It’s really cool to see how this business started as a hobby and then ‘boom,’ ” Hleeda said. “In 2021 we decided to take this more seriously and just go for it.”
In the future, they are hoping to widen their products by adding totes, apparel, notebooks, and journals.
To learn more and to browse their products, check out unicorneclipse.com.
