April & William Are Getting Married!

Earlier this month I finished printing a really awesome job for a couple of designers in Covington, Kentucky for their upcoming wedding in June.  William, the groom, designed all of the pieces in their invitation suite and hired Twin Ravens Press to do the letterpress printing.  You can see a photo of all of the pieces together at the top of this post.  Their suite included a custom sized invitation, reply card, map and two sets of envelopes.   

Both the invitation and map card were a custom size that was almost the same size as a standard T-length card, just a little skinnier.  Here is the invitation by itself: 

All of William and April's pieces were printed on Crane Lettra Bright White Paper with Chartreuse and Pewter Grey inks and blind embossing.  I really love the way that William chose to incorporate some subtle embossed elements into each of the pieces.  I often find that it's really fun and interesting to use blind embossed element in a design because it is something that can only be achieved with this printing method and it shows off the different capabilities of letterpress really well.  I also really enjoy William's use of a serif and san-serif font for their names - they way he designed it looks really classy and modern.  Here is a close-up so you can see what I'm talking about: 

The main information on the invitation (the couple's names, date and place) was printed in a combination of the chartreuse and grey inks, while the other information (times, etc...) was blind embossed.  I think the look of it is just awesome.  Here is a close-up of the section with the blind embossing: 

Throughout all of the pieces, William created a very modern and fresh line pattern that was embossed throughout.  For the invite, he used this pattern as decoration on the bottom of the piece and I printed some nice text over the top of the pattern in chartreuse.  I never asked where the text he used came from, perhaps it is a song lyric or from a poem or story the couple enjoys.  I think it's really whimsical and romantic though and adds a little bit of sweetness and whimsy to an otherwise very modern and classy design. 

**Note** After reading this original post, I received a very nice e-mail from the bride exclaiming how wonderful the invitations turned out.  In the e-mail she also informed me that the lyrics in the invitation design at the bottom are song lyrics from the song "This Twilight Garden" by the Cure.  Apparently, it's a B side, so not as popular as many of their other songs, but William and April loved it so much that it became a theme for their wedding.  Pretty cool...

Very cool, don't you think?  The invite was paired with a chartreuse T-Length envelope from Waste Not Paper Company, and the couple's return address was printed on the flap in opaque white ink.  

For the reply card, I printed a flood of chartreuse ink on the left side of the design and then blind embossed the decorative line pattern over the top.  I love the simplicity of the information on the card - it's brief, to-the-point, and keeps with the classy, modern and clean look of the other pieces in the suite.  This card was also paired with a chartreuse envelope from Waste Not Paper Company with the couple's address printed on the front in opaque white ink.  Here is the card and envelope and a close-up so you can get a better look at the printing and embossing.

Last, but certainly not least, is the map card.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a very good photo of the map card all by itself, but you can see it in the picture of the full suite at the top of this post.  Like the reply card, the map card featured a flood of chartreuse on the left side with William's decorative line pattern blind embossed over the top.  The information about where the celebration will take place is printed in chartreuse and grey inks in the white area to the right of the line pattern.  Then, the right-most half of the card is an actual map!  

Like the patterned sections on both the map and reply cards, the map section of this card was printed with a flood of chartreuse ink.  The roads and names of areas are actually areas where we didn't print the flood and the white is the actual white of the paper showing through.  For the map, I blind embossed the Ohio River on top of the printing which helped to create a tactile as well as visual representation of the geography.  

I really love the way that the pieces in William and April's suite turned out and it was really fun to get to work with another pair of designers!  Congratulations William & April!