Featured! | Junebug Real Weddings

It was lovely to discover that we recently got a lovely little mention over on Junebug Real Weddings for a wedding invitation suite we designed and printed for a lovely couple, Allison & Ryan, who were married on the Oregon Coast this past September. If you missed the post about their invitations on this blog, you should go and check it out here. A friend of mine, Kathryn Speyer, at Persimmon Images, photographed Allison and Ryan's wedding and it was through her that I discovered the mention on Junebug! I hadn't heard of Junebug until just recently, but their site seems to be a fabulous source for wedding inspiration, both on the actual site and on their blog. Go check out the feature here to see some of Kat's fabulous photos and to read more about Allison and Ryan's awesome wedding! Cheers!

Julian's Bar Mitzvah

In case you haven't noticed, this week I've been featuring tree-themed invitations on the blog. This wasn't totally intentional, I just happened to realize earlier this week that we've been doing a lot of tree-themed designs lately and I figured it would be a good opportunity to show them off, all together, so you could see how many different possibilities can come out of one, simple theme. The designs I've been showing off so far have been for wedding invitations and Save-the-Date cards, but we also recently printed a fabulous set of Bar Mitzvah invitations, for a young man named Julian, in the Los Angeles area.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, a Bar Mitzvah is a Jewish ceremony celebrating a boy's coming-of-age in the Jewish community. The Bar Mitzvah ceremony is typically an ordinary Sabbath service in which the boy participates for the first time as an adult. Typically a boy becomes a Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13. There is also an equivalent celebration for Jewish girls, called a Bat Mitzvah, which happens typically when the girl turns 12. Following the service there is often a celebratory meal or other type of party with family, friends and other members of the Jewish community. If you'd like to read more about Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, you can here.

Julian and his mom, Suzanne, had seen some of the Bar and Bat Mitzvah invitations I had designed and printed, here, on this blog, and decided to contact me about designing and printing Julian's. Julian and his family wanted some sort of Tree of Life theme and imagery when it came to the invitations, but were open to having that tree image be fairly modern and more organic than other more traditional depictions. Julian also expressed to me when we talked that he liked more antique-looking typefaces, so I made sure to take that into account when coming up with his design. Julian's Bar Mitzvah invitation suite, which you can see all together at the top of this post, included an A7 size invitation, a 4bar size reply postcard and an A7 envelope.

Julian's invitation was printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton Ecru paper in two ink colors: a very light, sagey green and chocolate brown. I created a very organic, natural, Tree of Life that surrounds the text of Julian's invite and bleeds off of both the left-hand side and top of the invitation. If you look at the detail photo below you can see all of the amazing detail that went into this tree - particularly in the leaves. It turned out so great letterpress printed! All of the text was printed in chocolate brown ink. I used a classic, serif typeface that reminded me of old wooden letterpress type for Julian's and his parent's names, and a different, classic, roman typeface for the rest of the text. Julian's family chose to include information about both the actual service at the temple that is going to happen in the morning, and information about the evening party at a downtown hotel, on the invite. Here is a close-up so you can see some of the details better:

Julian and his family chose to pair the invitation with a simple, matching, ecru, square-flap envelope, also from Crane. The envelope had their return address letterpress printed in chocolate brown ink on the back flap.

For the reply card, Julian and his family chose to do a postcard, rather than a traditional card with an envelope. This is an awesome option as it saves both money on printing, as well as paper. The reply postcard was double-sided and looked like this:

Like the main invitation envelope, we kept the back of the postcard very simple and printed just the family's address on it in brown ink.

The front of the reply postcard was very similar to the invite, and featured the Tree of Life image on the left-hand side, with text printed in chocolate ink to the right of it.

Like the reply card for a wedding, Julian's Bar Mitzvah reply card featured a line where guests could write in their names and a place to indicate whether or not they planned to attend. This particular reply also included a portion where adult guests could choose an entree selection for the party in the evening. Isn't it just great?!? I love the way this set turned out!!

Julian and his family were really fun to work with. I honestly loved getting phone calls from Julian about the designs when we were in the middle of the design process, especially because most of my clients are quite a bit older. It was especially fun to get to work with someone so young, who was so interested in having a say in how his invitations came out! If you'd like to see some more examples of Bar and Bat Mitzvah invitations I've designed and printed in the past, you can check them out on this blog here, here and here. Thanks so much again, Julian, Suzanne and Randy! You guys are awesome!!

Joanna & Ian are Getting Married!

Over a month ago (wow - I can't believe it's been that long already), I finished this lovely wedding invitation suite for a couple currently living in New York City, who are getting married in Hawaii this upcoming May. The bride, Joanna, is originally from Hawaii and her fiancee, Ian, is originally from New Zealand. They wanted to incorporate a little bit of their roots into their invitations, without the invitations seeming too tropical. You can see the entire suite at the top of this post. It included a 5.5" square invitation and 4bar reply card both printed in one ink color (a sagey, turquoise-y green) and blind embossing on Crane Lettra 100% cotton Ecru Paper and corresponding, matching envelopes for both pieces, also from Crane.

Here is the invitation and invitation envelope together.

Joanna chose a cute, square shape and square flap envelopes for her design. The envelopes were printed with her return address in the center of the flap.

For the design of the invite itself, we chose to keep things pretty traditional and elegant, but add a few modern and whimsical elements to make it unique.

Joanna had liked the blind embossing she had seen on some of our other invitations, so in order to incorporate this into her design we chose to do a pretty simple blind embossed border all around the design. For the text we used a pretty and modern script face that wasn't too flourish-y for their names and a nice serif typeface in all-caps for the rest of the information. In order to incorporate a little of their roots I mentioned above, Joanna had us create a small palm tree and kiwi bird graphic element for both the invite and reply card. The palm trees were meant to represent Joanna's Hawaiian background and the kiwi was meant to represent Ian's roots in New Zealand. Here is a close-up of the motif:

Isn't that cute?!? Below are a couple of other detail photos that I took so you can see the blind embossing, impression from the letterpress, fonts and colors a little bit closer.

For the reply cards, we chose to go with a matching design that incorporated both the palm trees/kiwi motif and the blind embossing. This card is a traditional 4bar shape and incorporated both the script and roman fonts we had used previously on the invitation.

This card also came with a matching ecru envelope that was printed with Joanna & Ian's address on the front.

This suite came together so beautifully and Joanna and Ian were an absolute joy to work with! I know that their tropical Hawaiian wedding in May is going to be just spectacular! Congratulations Joanna & Ian!

Erin & Andrew are Getting Married!

It always amazes me how time does fly here at Twin Ravens during the early parts of spring. It seems like almost all (not all, but almost all) of our clients this time of year are having us design and print stationery for their upcoming weddings in the early spring and summer. We do have quite a few other projects in the works this time of year, including some very sweet baby announcements, an awesome set of Bar Mitzvah invitations, and several different sets of business cards and other business-related stationery, but by and large, this time of year seems to be dominated by weddings. While I truly enjoy this time of year and getting to work with so many amazing people, I must admit, it does make things very busy, which would explain my extremely inconsistent blogging. However, I do have some absolutely lovely things to show you in the next few weeks, starting with this.

Nearly a month ago we finished a really fun, yet classic set of invitations for a couple in North Carolina who are getting married at the end of April. Erin and Andrew had seen some invitations I had designed and printed previously on this blog and chose to combine/modify a couple of them to create their own unique invitation suite! Their suite included an A7 size invite with matching envelope, a 4bar size reply card envelope and a combined A7 size reply card and accommodations card that were perforated down the middle so that the reply card could be detached and mailed back. You can see all of the pieces in this suite together at the top of this post.

Erin and Andrew's wedding colors are navy blue and a light green and we chose to incorporate these into her suite with both her ink colors and her paper choices. Here is Erin and Andrew's invitation all by itself:

This invitation is an A7 size, measuring 5"x7" and has a fun, organic frame surrounding a mix of a classic serif typeface and a fun, modern script, all printed in navy blue ink. To give the invitation some additional texture, we blind embossed a series of vertical lines in the background behind the framed portion of the invitation. I love how a little bit of blind embossing can add some wonderful texture to a design, without being too overwhelming! Below are some detail images so you can see the texture of the embossing and printing better.

We had originally planned to pair this invitation with a green envelope (Erin and Andrew's other wedding color), but due to a very long backorder of the green from our supplier, we ended up going with a matching white envelope, printed with navy ink instead. Check out the cute heart detail below their address! Isn't that adorable?!?

For their reply card envelopes, we did end up using the green. This green is a light green color called "Balsam Fir" from Green Paper Company. Not only are these envelopes a fabulous green color, because they are made from 30% post-consumer waste, they are also "green" environmentally-speaking too!

For Erin and Andrew's two insert cards, we did something that I absolutely love, but have only done a few times before: we combined them. There are, in fact, two separate cards here, but they were designed and printed to be mailed as a single card (5"x7"), but perforated down the middle so that the reply card could be detached and mailed back.

As you can see in the above photo, an accommodations card that is similar in design to Erin and Andrew's wedding invitation is the top half of the joined card, and a cute, navy-blue-on-white reply card is the bottom half.

The accommodations portion of this card also featured some blind-embossing: this time diagonal lines behind our cute frame. The interior of the frame featured information about where to stay and were to find Erin & Andrew's website. If you look closely at the above photo, you can see the perforation in the card right below where the blind embossing ends. Isn't this just cool?!?

The lower portion of this card is their detachable reply card.

Erin and Andrew included a space for guests to write in their names, check-box options for the actual response and an area for guests to initial what their meal preference is for the reception. I just love this combined-card idea. It saves money for the couple on printing (by printing effectively one card instead of two) and it's a great way to keep all of the enclosure information together until the reply is ready to be sent back.

Erin and Andrew were wonderful clients and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them on this suite! Thanks so much Erin and Andrew and congratulations on your upcoming big day!

Katie & Michael are Getting Married!

Right before I left for Minnesota a couple of weeks ago, I printed this lovely set of invitations for a couple in Texas who are getting married in May. The bride, Katie, designed these invitations herself and I just love the pretty flowers and sweet, whimsical grey hummingbird at the bottom. This suite includes a #10 size invitation, letterpress printed in two colors on Crane Lettra Pearl White paper, a #10 invitation envelope from Waste Not Paper Company in gravel grey and a 4bar size postcard that was digitally printed on a matching flat stock also from Waste Not Paper. At the top of this post you can see the whole suite together and below are photos of each of the pieces in detail.

Here is Katie's invitation by itself. She chose a really nice, light green ink for her floral details and names and a medium grey ink to match her envelopes for the rest of the text and for her hummingbird. I just love how whimsical and sweet this design is! Below are some detail photos so you can see the ink colors, fonts and letterpress impression a little better.

The reply postcards that went with these were a little bit simpler - no flowers or birdies, but the same great fonts Katie used were carried throughout. In order to save some money on printing, we chose to have this card printed digitally on a white card stock from Waste Not Paper that was a near-match to the 100% cotton stock we used for the invitation. Here it is below, front and back:

And, last but not least, come the envelopes. For her invitation envelopes, Katie chose a #10 size, long, skinny, grey envelope from Waste Not Paper. We printed her return address on the flap of it in a slightly darker grey than the invitation and envelope color.

Pretty sweet, don't you think?!? Working with Katie was a pleasure and I hope that their wedding this May is just as wonderful as their invitations! Thanks so much and congratulations Katie & Michael!

Leia & Tyler are Married!

Happy Valentines weekend, folks! I'm so sorry that I was a bad, well at least, absentee blogger this past week. Needless to say, with the spring wedding season picking up, and my near-total liberation from crutches this week, it's been a little busy around here. To make up for my absence from the virtual world this past week, I'd like to share with you some stationery for one of my favorite weddings from this past fall. As I've said before, I get to work with a lot of really creative, wonderful and awesome people throughout the year, but every now and again I get to work with a couple, family or individual who is just all-out fantastic. Leia and Tyler were one such couple.

Leia & Tyler were married this past October in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Cannon Beach is a pretty, little, Pacific-coast town, just west of Portland, with gorgeous beaches and a very notable natural landmark: Haystack Rock. When Leia, Tyler and I first met, they weren't sure what they wanted to do for their invitations, but after looking at several examples from past clients, both were drawn to this invitation that I printed for a Portland, Oregon couple, just a few months before. Tyler said he liked it because the invitation looked like a ticket to the wedding, which, if you think about it, really is what a wedding invitation is. Both Tyler and Leia also loved the fact that the invitation I linked to above featured a stylized, yet, photo-realistic image of the Cascade mountains. We figured we could incorporate this same idea, but into something that was more Cannon Beach-y.

Leia and Tyler's invitation suite is featured all together in the photo above. The suite included a monarch size (3.75"x7.25") wedding invitation and corresponding light green envelope, a monarch size map/directions card, a 4bar size reply card, with corresponding evergreen-colored envelope and a 3.5" coaster rehearsal dinner invitation. Here is the invitation by itself:

Leia & Tyler loved the style of the invitation from the suite I linked to above so much that we decided to go with pretty much the same idea for their invitation, with a few modifications to make it their own. Tyler and Leia sent me several photos of Cannon Beach to create a background for their invitation from and the one you see above, letterpress printed in a very light green ink, with Haystack Rock in the upper right and the beach and ocean stretching out in the foreground, is the image we chose. I love how realistic, yet very flat and stylistic, using a photo like this looks letterpress printed. We basically flattened the photograph out until it was only two colors, with the details of the beach dropping away in the front and the silhouette of Haystack Rock and other details left in the background. The light green part of the invitation that was printed was pressed down (de-bossed) slightly, from the letterpress process, which caused the white areas (Haystack Rock and other details) to become slightly raised. Check it out:

The texture of this, was totally awesome! To complete the design, we utilized a darker green ink for the evergreen tree on the right hand side of the design, as well as for Leia & Tyler's names, and a chocolate brown ink for the rest of the text.

This invitation was paired with a light green, 30% Post-consumer recycled envelope from Green Paper Company that had their return address letterpress printed on the flap.

Leia & Tyler's reply card was a 4bar size (measuring 3.5"x4.875") and was printed in one ink color: the darker of the two greens from their invitation. Layout-wise, we continued with a very similar style from their invitation. I used the same serif-typeface and we re-used the evergreen tree on the left-hand side.

Leia and Tyler were holding a welcome picnic in Ecola State Park the day before their wedding, so they included options on their reply card for people to indicate which event(s) they planned to attend. This card was paired with a darker green 100% post-consumer recycled envelope, also from Green Paper Company, and had Leia's parent's address printed on the front in chocolate brown ink.

Leia and Tyler's directions card was also printed in a single ink color: chocolate brown and was a monarch shape, just like their invitation.

The directions card featured directions from the Portland airport to Cannon Beach, as well as information about their picnic and accommodations. When I showed Leia and Tyler samples of other invitations I had done in the past, both really liked the hand drawn maps that we had done for several of our invitation suites. For this card, Tyler hand drew the map himself, and let me tell you: it turned out adorable.

I love how Tyler incorporated several cute little drawings of Cannon Beach landmarks into his map. Some of these included Haystack rock, a wooden fisherman that is outside one of the hotels, a puffin (apparently there are a lot of puffin statues and images in Cannon Beach) and a heart on the beach where their ceremony was to take place. Pretty adorable, if I do say so myself.

Last, but certainly not least, was a rehearsal dinner invitation. Leia and Tyler wanted to do something fun and unique for their rehearsal dinner invite and for this, we chose to do a coaster. (Yes, an actual coaster!)

These coasters are 3.5" round, thick coaster stock and were printed with the green tree motif once again, and Leia & Tyler's rehearsal dinner invitation information in chocolate brown ink. I love how we made the text wrap around the shape of the coaster and I love how unique and original this is. I've done coasters for Save-the-Date cards and as actual coasters to put drinks on for receptions before, but this was my first coaster-reheasal-dinner-invitation. Pretty cool, don't you think?!?

Since doing their invitations, Leia and Tyler and I have become pretty good friends. Tyler is an architect and helped me with some minor house problems over the summer, and has also been helping me a bit in my shop since I broke my leg this past January. Both he and Leia are just really cool people, all around. I've done some other work for them since their invitations, including some favors for their wedding, and thank you cards just recently, which I will show off in my next post. Leia and Tyler also sent me several photos from their wedding, that I will show off here too! Check back soon!

Thanks so much Leia & Tyler. You guys are awesome!

Beckie and Seth are Getting Married!

Shortly after my accident, and with a lot of help from some wonderful friends and volunteers, I completed this lovely set of wedding invitations for a bride and groom in Oakland, California. The bride's soon-to-be sister-in-law, Mikayle Anderson, lives here in Eugene, and is a fabulous graphic designer! She designed Beckie and Seth's wedding invitation suite and hired Twin Ravens Press to print it! Check it out!

At the top of this post you can see all four pieces in the suite together. There was a 6.75" square wedding invitation, a 5" square reply card and corresponding envelopes to go with both. All of the pieces were letterpress printed in a lovely shade of light blue on Crane Lettra 100% cotton Pearl White paper. We paired the invitation and reply card with matching Crane Lettra square flap envelopes for a gorgeous, totally coordinated suite.

Here is the invitation by itself. I love the large, square size and the gorgeous floral image that Mikayle created to frame the typography. It's such a pretty use of space, and the impression from both the type and image turned out beautifully!

As I mentioned above, this invitation was paired with a matching, 7" square, 100% cotton envelope from Crane. We letterpress printed the couple's return address in the same light blue ink on the flap.

For the reply card, Mikayle created a coordinating floral design and utilized the same typefaces as the invitation to create a card that is both whimsical and totally coordinated with the rest of the suite. This card is also a square shape, and is a bit smaller than the invitation. It also came with a matching Crane & Co. envelope that was letterpress printed with the couple's address on the front.

Aren't these just lovely?!? Working with Mikayle was an absolute joy and I look forward to working with her on other potential letterpress projects in the future. She's a fabulous designer, so if you like the style of these invitations, and would potentially like to work with Mikayle on designing something for you, please contact Twin Ravens Press and I can put you in touch with her.

Thanks so much and congratulations Beckie, Seth and Mikayle!