Goods Gang’s Katrina Mendoza on defying traditional wedding aesthetics

While 90% of the wedding stationery industry defaults to angelic colour and ethereal motifs, Katrina Mendoza has built Goods Gang around a deliberately different proposition. Operating as a solo studio from the Bay Area, California, she’s developed what she calls a “fluid layout system” – a semi-custom approach that sits between rigid templates and time-consuming bespoke work. Her typography-focused designs embrace bold colours and unexpected details, rejecting the precious aesthetic that dominates the industry. This systematic approach isn’t just about efficiency; it’s a reflection of lessons absorbed during her education, where Swiss and Bauhaus principles taught her that constraints sharpen rather than limit creativity. In our conversation, Mendoza unpacks her journey from a decade in tech to founding Goods Gang, why New York liberated her to leave corporate work, and how personal tragedy shaped her commitment to treating clients as humans first. TBI: Hey Katrina, how’s your week going? KM: It’s been wild. The holiday season is equal parts charm and chaos, and my workload somehow expands accordingly. Weddings slow down, but I allow collabs and holiday work events to overflow into the space I should otherwise leave open for my sanity (oops). There are also more family and social commitments – potlucks to assemble, dinner plans to orchestrate, more days off school, a.k.a. more workdays at home with my daughter (also equal parts charm and chaos). So yeah, just totally nuts.