it’s 2016 in the lower east side. i, emma, was starting a new job: employee #1 at a hospitality startup. just three 20-somethings, sitting in a room.

one day into the job, i’m asked if i go by any nicknames. “we’ll call you em.”

one month into the job, I'm instructed - in a just-kidding-but-not-really sort of way - to stop switching up my email sign-offs. “stick to warmly. it’s a nice fit.”

one year into the job, clients and partners start joking that my legal name must be “warmly em.”

over time, “warmly” evolved into an adjective, a directive, a way of being. warmly: an indicator of familiarity, an endeared eagerness, a promise to “make it nice,” as my former front-of-house mentors would often say, quoting their own.

warmly was born into the world of hospitality, raised on tales of dream-weavers and touched tables.  it grew up on quiet noticings and glimmers of intentionality - winks and sparkles tucked into the everyday, proof that the details are the best bits; they’re how we make people feel seen.

warmth isn’t grand; it’s deliberate. 

and that same quiet intentionality lives on today, now in paper and pigment; in the story behind the act. warmly lives on in the handmade, the homemade, the “this made me think of you’s.”

it began as an email signature, now it’s leading the way. see you there.

warmly,
em