Not every wedding invite is so typographically unique as this one, with wedding birds too! Emily and Emory, the Bride and Groom designed these fun loving cards with display typography built from basic geometric forms overprinting each other. The warm color palette is three spot PMS colors which overlap and create additional letterpress texture. The cards are Crane Lettra Florecent White 110lbC 5 x 5 size – all printed together on a single large press sheet in tight register. They even included a little “eye spy” art print that turned out really sweet as well. The envelope is a metallic Stardream stock printed with silver metallic ink. Check out Emory’s site for even more illustrative work.



Published on
September 4, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: 110lb, crane, Design, emory, geometric, illustration, invasion, invitation, invite, invites, Letterpress, lettra, ocular, ocular invasion, orange, red, stationary, stationery, type, typography, unique, Wedding, yellow.
A bilingual wedding can be challenge. The bride needed invites in English and the groom needed Spanish. The simplest solution for this wedding in Mexico was both English and Spanish versions of the invitation. We designed and letterpress printed them with a textural yet refined style – a geometric border with a simple hand lettering for the couples names. The stock is Canalleto Grana Grossa 111lb Cover (20% cotton) and is printed in three match colors. The overprinting creates additional dimension and colors in the flower and vine motif. To integrate the invites closely with envelopes, we matched our ink colors to existing envelope colors from French Paper’s Poptone color line – orange fizz and limeade. Salud!


Published on
August 31, 2009 in
Design, Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: 111lb, bilingual, border, canaletto grana grossa, cards, Design, english, flower, geometric, green, gruppo cordenons, hand lettering, invite, invites, lettering, letterpress wedding invitation, mexico, orange, printer, printing, spanish, stationary, stationery, texture, type, typography, vine, Wedding.
Erin Jang designed this custom wedding project for Marci and Ben with a unique combination of letterpress and digital printing. The typography here really has a beautiful touch – even with lots of different typefaces, the design is balanced and elegant. Not always an easy thing to do. We also like how the mini envelope on the invitation card creates another level suspense in opening the invitation.
We printed the letterpress portion of the project with 220lb Crane Lettra in an Ecru color and returned them to Erin for finishing. (They needed them quickly, and yes we are always doing some sort of rush custom letterpress work) These cards then had a unique small envelope afixed to them which contains the digitally printed red invitation. Also worth a produciton note is the perf that separates the map and the rsvp card into two parts. We used a fairly coarse perforating rule – about 20 tpi. (teeth per inch) A very thick stock needs enough paper left intact on the perf so it doesn’t just accidently fall off. It’s always worth having several kinds of perf rule around to test the stock and use the one that works best. The difference between a perf that just won’t tear clean and one that falls apart to easy can be tricky to balance. We keep rule around from around 18 tpi up to 100 tpi micro perf.
Check out Erin Jangs blog for more sweet design work. And if you want more, this invite has also been bloggity blogged on some of our favorite sites including Design Sponge, Black Eiffel and Mint Design Blog.



Published on
August 12, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: 220lb, cotton, crane, custom, Design, designer, ecru, envelope, erin jang, gray, invitation, invitations, invite, Letterpress, lettra, mini, perf, perforation, printer, printing, red, script, stationary, stationery, tpi, type, typography, Wedding.
Sometimes a great didone typeface just looks succulent, at least we think so. Those serifs are so nice and letterpress crisp, mmmm.
Sara Janssen, who I worked with back in the day at Carmichael Lynch Thorburn (now The Thorburn Group), designed them beautifully. The detail of the hummingbirds and the classic type makes this an elegant set of wedding stationery indeed. Hummingbirds are such an exquisite little bird of great symbolism, we love the copy they put on the table number card. The color is a dark purple ink printed on Gruppo Cordenons Canaletto 111lbC. We’ve been specifying this sheet for some weddings as a cost savings alternate to Pearl White Crane Lettra. It has a more pronounced texture but only a 20% cotton content. It does not taste very good though.


Published on
July 27, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: 111lb, birds, canaletto, cards, Design, didone, hummingbird, invitation, invite, invites, letter, Letterpress, letterpressed, modern, number, press, printing, purple, Sara Janssen, stationary, stationery, table, type, typography, Wedding.
A simple pattern goes a long way with letterpress printing. This is a design from the bride that uses a contemporary geometric pattern with a refined gray and yellow color palette. It is pressed on Crane Lettra 110lb Cotton stock with a matching Lettra envelope. The pattern even comes across the flap of the envelope. A nifty little details card directs you to the couples web site and replaces lengthy printed information that can clutter up an invitation suite. Connect with the bride Sabrena if you like the design style of this invite and would like her design services . The right pattern produces such beautiful letterpress texture. We’d love to print more like this.

Published on
June 16, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: bride design, California, contemporary, design texture, details, flap, geometric, invitation, invitations, invite, LA, Letterpress, letterpress wedding invitation, lettra, los angeles, modern, pattern, printing, simple, square, Wedding, yellow.
We recently finished this rather large letterpress wedding system designed by Priya Patel. Check out her fashion forward blog Love Made Visible. We asked her about the design:
Priya: “The background for the design is that the couple are to be married in a botanical garden and the bride Neerja was really inspired by traditional Indian miniature paintings which often depict figures in natural settings. She wanted to incorporate a painting with her invitation so we printed one on vellum as a cover sheet for the invite.”



Priya: “We needed to design invitations for not only her wedding in Virginia, but also a reception the weekend after in Texas that is hosted by the groom Neel’s parents. We also wanted both events to be linked visually, thus the full color nature elements.”

Since the invite was sized for a large A10 envelope, that made for a very large 13 x 20 press sheet that incorporated all the wedding cards. In this wedding, there were two main invite cards – the brides invitation and the grooms invitation. Plus the other reply cards, direction cards and sangeet invitation. That’s a lot of letterpress! Producing multiple pieces on the same press sheet keeps the cost down.

We produced the design from Priya with a combination of letterpress and digital printing. Digital printing is used for the vellum sheet and the back of the reception card. All of the navy text is letterpress printed. The paper stock is 111lb (300gsm) Canaletto Grana Grossa 20% cotton from Gruppo Cordenons. We also die cut the contrasting navy paper for the folding enclosure using French Papers Nightshift Blue and mixed our printing ink to cordinate with the navy paper. The minimal typography and ornamental detail of this design were perfectly suited for letterpress printing and produced a beautiful sculptural impression.
Published on
June 13, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: botanical, canaletto, cards, cotton, Design, enclosure, garden, grana grossa, indian, invitation, invite, large, letter press, Letterpress, love made visable, navy, overlay, painting, paintings, pomagraita, priya, reception, reply, sangeet, traditional, typography, vellum, Wedding.
Custom wedding projects are a specialty for our studio. When a marriage has multiple events and large amounts of information – a booklet structure just makes sense. We worked with stationery designer Kavita Ahuja on this letterpress printed booklet for her brothers wedding. (Also, her and her fiancee also have a very cool website selling boutique handmade perfumes called D.S. & Durga.)
The booklet is a french folded structure with a cover that wraps the spine to hide the raw page edges. The french folding allows a nice letterpress impression on each page while hiding any show through of impression on the interior since the backs are hidden. Everything is printed on Pearl White Crane Lettra 80lbT with navy and gold ink. The binding edge is stitched from the top with a navy thread. The booklet fits into an existing A7 square flap envelope. Note on that the envelope can print both the face and the flap by opening them before printing.


Published on
May 26, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: a7, binding, book, booklet, crane, d.s. and Durga, ds & durga, french fold, invitation, invite, Letterpress, lettra, marriage, mendi, pearl white, printing, script, stationary, stationery, stitch, structure, text, thread, top stitch, type, typography, unique, Wedding.
When we posted the Save The Date card by designer Nick Brue a couple months back, we were super excited to see what he had in mind for the design of the actual wedding invitation. Finally, here is his design that just recently left the pressroom:


This invitation set is housed within a mini custom die cut pocket folder which neatly organizes the various cards. The folder is printed with a tonal custom woodgrain pattern using a clear varnish ink on letterpress with heavy impression. A belly band is fitted to the exterior of the folder with a Continue reading ‘Woodgrain & Crest Letterpress Wedding’
Published on
May 8, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: band, belly band, brown, buckle, crest, custom, Design, die cut, diecut, folder, invitation, invite, Letterpress, letterpress printing, mini, minneapolis, minnesota, monogram, nick brue, pocket folder, printing, shield, stationery, tiny, tone on tone, type, typography, Wedding, wedding invitation, woodgrain, wrap.

We love wedding designs that challenge the status quo. The unexpected combination of a antique woodtype-inspired-tuscan-style font alongside a modern san serif face seems to work here. We like the bold linear quality of the design with hearts to add a little finesse. And, it was designed by the groom himself (Ryan Floss).

Another unique thing about this invite is the size. Invites need not be giant. Making things smaller certainly helps keep the cost down. The main invite card here is only A2 (5.5 x 4.25). The direction card is actually a standard business card size of 3.5 x 2. That is a nice pocket size to take along to the event. All the cards are letterpress printed on 100% cotton Crane Lettra Flo. White paper.
Published on
May 6, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: invitation, invite, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, minnesota, ryan floss, san, sans, serif, stationery, tuscan, type, typography, Wedding, woodtype.


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’
Published on
May 5, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: bird, brooke, cards, carolina, cleve, crane, Design, fonts, gray, invitation, invite, Letterpress, lettra, minneapolis, minnesota, north, ornament, ornamental, printer, printing, ribbon, rococo, script, serif, shell, smith, stationery, type, typography, wagoner, Wedding, wicker, wickerwork, yellow.
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.


Published on
May 4, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: black, black tie, castle, copenhagen, denmark, Design, dublin, edinburgh, field, fieldmice, ink, ireland, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, minnesota, paper, printing, reception, silver, stock, stonehenge, type, typography, Wedding.
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.


Published on
May 2, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: black, blue, cards, cheeky design, Design, invitation, invite, LA, Letterpress, los angeles, plaid, registration, set, stationery, tight, typography, Wedding, whale, yellow.