Comprised of a main invitation card and an additional information card, this wedding suite combines unusual materials and several print processes. The main invitation is an oversized card (7.5″ x 10.5″) of 145 lb French Packing Board we custom duplexed to 100 lb Wausau Royal Complements Eclipse black cover stock. Studio On Fire letterpress printed the text on one side and then sent the piece off for foiling (white and black) on both sides.

The information card was also oversized (10.5″ x 15″) printed on one of our house stocks, Crane Lettra Pearl White 110C. Black ink is used on both sides, with an additional tonal ink used to create visual texture on the outside of the card. Once the card had completed printing it received several score and perforation lines, allowing the RSVP to be separated and returned.

As a special bonus, the couple had a great video made of their wedding weekend that they agreed to share.

We letterpress printed in two color on Strathmore Ultimate White label stock. We kiss cut the labels with a steel rule die with several punches to add the coarse perforated edge when ripped and opened. Yum and Buzz.

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.

Some noteworthy things about this system:

We partnered with another vendor to produce the offset floods of color on the letterhead and envelopes. Those big fields of color are next to impossible to hold consistent on letterpress. We can do larger areas of color (we did it on the note card and business card) but there is more variation in letterpress printing than in offset. When that variation is desirable we will print a flood of color on certain stocks. When it is not desirable, we recommend combining letterpress with offset. (Yes, that adds cost.) It is worth noting that we can print a large press sheet and often work in tandem with commercial offset printing.

Business Cards are 5 PMS /1 PMS. We matched the ink printed offset with our letterpress ink.

All the type and small graphics are letterpress printed. Light colored type is a heavy impression with custom mixed varnish. You can see in the letterhead detail and business card detail the show through on the reverse of the sheet.

The envelope is custom converted and has a perforation line across the flap.