Jasmin Foster is the creator of Be Rooted – a revolutionary brand designed to inspire women of color to explore their inner muse and celebrate themselves through journals, notebooks, and planners. We’re so excited to introduce Jasmin and discuss her entrepreneurial journey, her inspiration for her designs, and what’s on the horizon for the brand.
How would you describe your entrepreneurial journey?
My entrepreneurial journey has been a lesson of learning myself. It has been an amazing exploration of testing my boundaries and pushing myself to design the life that I want to live. I love the freedom of waking up each day and knowing that the effort that I put into today directly impacts my overall vision.
What inspired you to create “Be Rooted”?
As a little girl growing up in Indianapolis, I always loved stationery. With every new semester, I would be excited to buy school supplies, and into adulthood, I’d buy a new planner to map out my work and life. Despite my enthusiasm, over the years I realized that I always felt disconnected from the category. I never really felt like journals and stationery were designed with women of color in mind. I wanted to change that.
After many years of waiting for a brand to come in and to help me feel seen, I launched Be Rooted because I wanted to change the face of the stationery industry. I want my community to feel rooted in culture, rooted in representation, and rooted in who they are. For far too long and in too many spaces, Black and Brown women have been left unseen and unspoken to. Be Rooted was created to flip that narrative and center Black and Brown women by making them feel loved, celebrated, and uplifted.
Imagery is the heart of your products, how do you capture the range of texture in your graphics?
Our design process is multi-step. It first starts with brainstorming the theme and mood of what we want to evoke from the collection. From there, we are able to build out a more detailed mood board and color palette that is inclusive of inspiration from the real world. From there my designers move to sketching, and once we align, we illustrate.
You’re a champion for collaborating with independent artists for your products, how does this support the mission of “Be Rooted”?
I am a huge advocate for impacting the whole ecosystem and not just being a business that sells goods. With the community that we are building, I love being able to use our platform to widen the exposure of independent artists.
What’s In The Horizon for “Be Rooted”?
We have a very exciting Holiday collection launching at the end of October. We will be launching 20+ SKUs across 6 different stationery and gifting categories.
In honor of our partnership with Uncle Funky’s Daughter, you will be able to receive 15% off all of your favorite Be Rooted products using the code: UNCLEFUNKYS! I hope that you take advantage of the coupon and treat yourself and your loved ones!
P.S. You can shop your favorite Be Rooted and Uncle Funky’s Daughter products at your local Target store!
xoxo
Jasmin Foster (@berootedco)
