Studio On Fire // Design & Letterpress Blog
We figured we’ll keep going with the wedding invitation posts all this week.
This letterpress invitation is an exquisite balance of wickerwork ornament and type. The graphic ribbon creates a wonderful sense of dimension as it intertwines the ornamental panels. The script font combines with the serif and italic fonts to establish a Continue reading ‘Ornamental Wickerwork: Carolina Wedding Invitation’
Setting the tone for a black tie event with rich black paper just seems logical. Black paper should actually be a requirement if you are having a reception in a castle. (insert jealous sigh here) This contemporary type and linear design is letterpress printed with silver ink on 250gsm Stonehenge Black Paper in a horizontal format. It’s nice to see the type arranged outside typical wedding layouts. These invites were designed by a fantastic design firm – Field - based out of Copenhagen and Dublin. Which goes to show we are happy to letterpress print custom work for designers everywhere.
The world would be a better place if only we had more plaid. And that is what makes this letterpress wedding invitation extra fantastic. This fun and colorful stationery was designed by the couple Heather and Barry for their LA wedding. They have “His & Hers” invitation design company launching soon. In the mean time, check out their design and illustration work at Cheeky Design.
This invite is one of the most challenging we’ve letterpress printed in terms of registration. The plaid design relies on the white spaces between the colors aligning perfectly. Take a look at the detail shots to see how the colors align. Other tight register work can sometimes be choked or trapped to provide some tolerance in the printing. Not here – this was TIGHT. And we love the final product.
This invitation suite was designed by the bride, Stacey Averbuch. It is an elegant invitation in it’s typographic texture, mixing a coarse script font with a finely serifed engravers typeface. The ink is dark brown letterpress on Crane Lettra cotton paper. A cement green envelope color from French Paper was used for all the envelopes in the set. Email Stacey if you really like the design and would like her to work on a custom stationery set for you.
This a good wedding tip: Colored Envelopes. We like the simplicity of adding color to a wedding invitation set by using a colored envelope. It’s a great way to put some color in the set without the expense of letterpress printing more color.
The same dark brown color is printed on both the cards and the envelopes. We printed the invite cards together on a single press sheet and trimmed them to size after printing. That keeps the cost of all the cards more friendly. Also, don’t forget to include a thank you card while printing your inviations. That saves time and money in the long run. We specialize in printing custom sets brought to us by other designers and event planners. Thanks Stacey for a sharp looking invitation.
Designer Aya Ikegaya created this beautiful invitation structure for a wedding in Tuscany, Italy. We produced this by combining letterpress printing with blind embossing. The outer sleeve is actually the invitation. Inside is a thick cotton card letterpress printed with Continue reading ‘Tuscany Semi Formal Wedding Invitation’
This invite pumps up the jam with an old school boom box and mix tapes. We love it for it’s fun factor and unique departure from most wedding stationery. The horizontal size is different, the illustration is super fun and the couples initials are even in the speakers of the boom box!
Adam Ramerth at Lark designed this set. He did a fantastic job with the theme. And we must say, this is a demanding letterpress printing job. The registration is TIGHT. The two yellow and blue colors align critically over one another to create the green as they overprint. The large graphics with small type make Continue reading ‘Mix Tape Letterpress Wedding Invitations’
This is a follow up to our post about affordable wedding invites. These invites were designed by the bride and groom Stephanie Mead and Doug Kohnen at Docent Creative. Doug did some beautiful illustrations that turned out stunning on press. We letterpress printed and trimmed the cards for them. They are dense black ink on Crane Lettra 110lb Pearl White, 100% cotton. They sent us some photos of how they assembled everything with a tag and ribbon. They even silk screened their own envelopes. So, how do you get a gorgeous wedding invitation for a reasonable price?
Continue reading ‘Affordable Letterpress Wedding Invitations – Part 2′
If script fonts on wedding invitations generally make your stomach turn, this invite layout should provide some typographic Alka-Seltzer. That’s what happens when a great interactive designer gets married. Designed by the groom himself, Jamey Erickson principal over at Sevnthsin in Minneapolis created his invites with a simple and bold typographic layout. Check out some Sevnthsin interactive work here. (They did this great website recently for P.O.S.)
The column layout using justified type accents information and creates heirarchy in a way unique to wedding invitations. The invite set was letterpress printed in our studio with black and silver ink on a single press sheet to keep costs reasonable. (just the little dotted lines of hearts are in silver) The whole invitation set uses Crane Lettra 110lb Pearl White cotton paper stock with matching envelopes. The program card was printed separately closer to the wedding date. It is a very long and narrow card format with printing on each side to handle all the program information. All in all, simple type, done up proper.
This uniquely shaped invitation was designed by us at Studio On Fire. It is one of the most interesting die lines we’ve created for wedding invitations – elegant and fun at the same time. It is a simple green one color letterpress on white paper with that same green printing on a green paper for a tone on tone effect. What really gives this invitation set a unique twist is that the cards nest into a four strap belly band enclosure which holds them together. Inside there are three cards: an invite, a map and an RSVP postcard. The four strap enclosure buckles together with slits in the paper and does not require glue or tape. The address area on the enclosure can be written on like an envelope. Once fastened together the invite then mails in a clear bag rather than an envelope.
A wedding in Puerto Rico requires an invite worthy of the occasion. Bride and groom Ashley Geoffroy and Russell Austin co-designed these for their wedding. We printed the long folding letterpress card which perforates apart for the RSVP return. They gocco printed the fabric with the invite text. Then Ashley and her mom had a field day stitching everything together. An amazing amount of work with a beautiful outcome. It’s such a light and airy piece that stays modern with the accent stitching. Truly the one-of-a-kind invitation we love to be a part of producing.
The economy being in the tank doesn’t mean people stop getting married. Letterpress wedding invitation sets can be affordable with a little planning. One of the things that we do to make printing them affordable is run all of the pieces on the same press sheet. Our presses are big enough to run several different cards on the same press sheet, then trim them down to size. This represents a huge cost savings over printing individual cards, setting up the press for each form on each card. Good god – that takes some time! Having a big press has it’s advantages.
We do not have a library of wedding invitations to choose from like many letterpress shops. Our approach to weddings is strictly custom. All the wedding work we print is either supplied by other designers or created in our studio.
Michael Carpenter at Switch Creative created these for his own wedding. We admire the simplicity and the typographic restraint. Three cheers to couples who can design their own invites and live to tell the tale.
You can see how he got all four of these cards printed together by comparing the final cards to the press sheet. The Invite, Reply, Save the Date and Thank You all pressed together makes the cost much more attractive than pricing them all individually. So think about the various pieces you need we’ll get them together on a sheet for you. It’ll save you money and create marital bliss.
We do a ton of custom wedding letterpress work with designers around the country. These were hot of the press today and designed by the groom-to-be, Nick Brue. We went all out on this card with the production details:
Brown Side: Clear Varnish for woodgrain print and custom silver/gold metallic for type.
White Side: Blind letterpress (no ink) for the pattern and custom match ink to brown stock
Then we glue the sheets together back to back in register. And yes, we love to print extremely tiny type.
