Wiley Valentine, CaliforniaVendor: Invitations and Paper ProductsWebsite: Wiley ValentineAbout Me: Wiley Valentine is named for our artistic grandmothers, Mary Wiley and Norma Jean Valentine. Our company is 4 years old and growing strong. We specialize in invitations, stationery, and all sorts of paper delights. We love the forest, vintage books, thunder storms, butterflies, fairy tales and the smell of rain. We strive to think of our environment first when creating our paper products, and only use 100% recycled or 100% cotton papers.
I am very excited to share with you our new business cards! We decided this year in order to cut down on waste, to use all of the scraps from the papers we are using for our new stock products. We also ended up using whatever inks happened to be on the press at the time, creating this unique collection of business cards. I love the idea that there are so many varieties to give out! I am especially loving the blind letterpress (no ink) and the chipboard!
This is actually a little sneak peek into what we are about to release at the end of next week in terms of colors and papers. I can’t wait to share all of that with you! But in the meantime enjoy this peak at our business cards.
Jerry Yoon, San FranciscoVendor: PhotographerWebsite: Jerry Yoon PhotographyAbout Me: Gone are the days of being stuck with boring wedding photography, where everyone and everything looks like the same old photographer took it. We're not here to please your mom. We want to rock your socks off with imagery that explodes off the page and makes you feel all fuzzy inside. We're inspired by who you are and not what others think you should be. Playwright, architect, nuclear scientist, tax man, dance machine, burly construction man, blog stalker. We take them all. Can't wait to jump into the pool together and make something your kindergarten teacher would be proud of!
Julie and Mario from Subtle Glances are the brains behind our business cards that we love so much. We’ve always been a fan of the timelessness and quality of their letterpress work. Here is a smattering of the invitations that we’ve shot in the last year. Check out their website and blog! I love looking at their blog and being inspired by all the textures and colors they put up there.
Cynthia Converse, Syracuse, NYVendor: InvitationsWebsite: Bella FiguraAbout Me: Bella Figura is a wind-powered, eco-friendly letterpress shop committed to the fine artisanship of letterpress printing and the environment. Along with our sister company, Smock, we print our wedding invitations and stationery on only the finest luxury cotton and bamboo papers to ensure the most beautiful of prints in sight and to the touch, while working tirelessly to do our little piece for the good of the earth. We are hopelessly in love with our abundant collection of cast iron presses, farmer's markets, fall in Upstate NY, creating beautiful heirlooms for our brides, businesses that do good for the world, calligraphy, spending time in nature, contributing to the greater letterpress community, our rambling studios in a converted warehouse turned artist's haven, and our two year old in residence. Turning invitations into art on paper while dedicating ourselves to the environment is not what we do, it's who we are.
In addition to printing our own letterpress wedding invitation designs for couples, we are also more than happy to print custom designs upon request. Sometimes that will entail printing a design created by the couple, and other times that will mean working with them to create a design that is inspired by their ideas. Either way, it’s a fun opportunity for us to print something truly unique and personal to a couple, which we absolutely love.
Designing for letterpress is a bit different than designing for other printing methods. So I wanted to share some tips for creating your own invitation design in a letterpress-friendly way, if you’re looking to go with letterpress invitations, but still looking to add that DIY touch to your design.
Sabrina & Eunice Moyle, San Francisco, CAVendor: Invitations & StationeryWebsite: Hello! LuckyAbout Me: We (sisters Eunice and Sabrina Moyle) started Hello!Lucky in 2003 out of Eunice's garage with a hand-cranked Vandercook printing press. Since then we've created whimsical stationery and greeting card designs for almost every occasion, including wedding invitations, save the dates, thank you notes, and a line of hilarious sock monkey cards! We love crafting, flea marketing, fashion, travel, and all things paper. We're based San Francisco with a studio in London, so we're immersed in design trends from around the world!
Wiley Valentine, CaliforniaVendor: Invitations and Paper ProductsWebsite: Wiley ValentineAbout Me: Wiley Valentine is named for our artistic grandmothers, Mary Wiley and Norma Jean Valentine. Our company is 4 years old and growing strong. We specialize in invitations, stationery, and all sorts of paper delights. We love the forest, vintage books, thunder storms, butterflies, fairy tales and the smell of rain. We strive to think of our environment first when creating our paper products, and only use 100% recycled or 100% cotton papers.
It’s great to see invitations used for different occasions, like this Southern Splendor save the date that she used as her engagement party invitation. It’s hand letterpress printed on 100% cotton paper. I love the way the orange really pops especially with the champagne accent color!
Cynthia Converse, Syracuse, NYVendor: InvitationsWebsite: Bella FiguraAbout Me: Bella Figura is a wind-powered, eco-friendly letterpress shop committed to the fine artisanship of letterpress printing and the environment. Along with our sister company, Smock, we print our wedding invitations and stationery on only the finest luxury cotton and bamboo papers to ensure the most beautiful of prints in sight and to the touch, while working tirelessly to do our little piece for the good of the earth. We are hopelessly in love with our abundant collection of cast iron presses, farmer's markets, fall in Upstate NY, creating beautiful heirlooms for our brides, businesses that do good for the world, calligraphy, spending time in nature, contributing to the greater letterpress community, our rambling studios in a converted warehouse turned artist's haven, and our two year old in residence. Turning invitations into art on paper while dedicating ourselves to the environment is not what we do, it's who we are.
Here are a few great ideas from Smock’s client coordinator Tiffany Field that will help keep your letterpress invitation costs down, while still giving you really wonderful letterpress wedding invitations.
Take a 2 or 3 color design down to 1 color
Many of our 2 and 3 color designs look equally impressive when printed in one color. Fewer colors mean fewer runs through the press which equals less expense. Our designer BethAnn is amazing at this – she knows just what to add and take away so that your design looks just as inviting as its more colorful counterpart.
Splurge on a 2 or 3 color design for the invitation and opt for 1 color accessory pieces
If you absolutely cannot live without a multi-color invitation, opt for your other pieces (reply card, directions card, reception card, etc) to be printed in 1 color. You will get the same impact with your invitation while saving considerably on your additional pieces.
Downsize and use a smaller size card (e.g. a reply card size for save the date)
Some budget savvy friends of ours came up with this idea for their clients’ save the dates and birth announcements, and the idea has really taken off. This is one of my absolute favorite cost cutting options – they are such a sweet little size!
Eliminate the reply card all together and put the contact information on the invitations
This idea is becoming more popular with brides who are not just minding their budget but the environment as well. Printing your reply information in the bottom left hand corner of your invitation is an acceptable alternative that can save you money.
Cynthia Converse, Syracuse, NYVendor: InvitationsWebsite: Bella FiguraAbout Me: Bella Figura is a wind-powered, eco-friendly letterpress shop committed to the fine artisanship of letterpress printing and the environment. Along with our sister company, Smock, we print our wedding invitations and stationery on only the finest luxury cotton and bamboo papers to ensure the most beautiful of prints in sight and to the touch, while working tirelessly to do our little piece for the good of the earth. We are hopelessly in love with our abundant collection of cast iron presses, farmer's markets, fall in Upstate NY, creating beautiful heirlooms for our brides, businesses that do good for the world, calligraphy, spending time in nature, contributing to the greater letterpress community, our rambling studios in a converted warehouse turned artist's haven, and our two year old in residence. Turning invitations into art on paper while dedicating ourselves to the environment is not what we do, it's who we are.
One of the things we love most about the craft of letterpress printing is that it is not an exact science. It’s an art. No two prints are exactly alike, but rather full of character and subtle variations of inking, color and impression that make each piece as unique as it is lovely. Our printers are true artisans who have honed their craft over the course of many months and years of printing, learning, experimenting, and teaching. Each print is closely inspected for quality and if our highest of standards are not met, we will reprint a piece to ensure it’s nothing short of spectacular.
As letterpress printing is a bit of a lost art, we recently produced a short video to offer an inside glimpse into our printshop and to see one of our vintage Heidelberg Windmill presses in action. We love how it captures the spirit of our shop, where every piece we create for both Bella Figura and Smock is crafted in-house. Our team of printers works together to continually improve and advance the art of letterpress and we just had to share a sneak peek into what they do to create the beautiful stationery we lovingly provide for brides around the world. We love this video as it was a true labor of love on behalf of Bella Figura/Smock co-founder Harold Kyle who took the time to add videographer and video editor to his long list of credentials (in addition to letterpress guru and many others) in order to offer this exclusive look into what we do. Enjoy!
Cynthia Converse, Syracuse, NYVendor: InvitationsWebsite: Bella FiguraAbout Me: Bella Figura is a wind-powered, eco-friendly letterpress shop committed to the fine artisanship of letterpress printing and the environment. Along with our sister company, Smock, we print our wedding invitations and stationery on only the finest luxury cotton and bamboo papers to ensure the most beautiful of prints in sight and to the touch, while working tirelessly to do our little piece for the good of the earth. We are hopelessly in love with our abundant collection of cast iron presses, farmer's markets, fall in Upstate NY, creating beautiful heirlooms for our brides, businesses that do good for the world, calligraphy, spending time in nature, contributing to the greater letterpress community, our rambling studios in a converted warehouse turned artist's haven, and our two year old in residence. Turning invitations into art on paper while dedicating ourselves to the environment is not what we do, it's who we are.
We’ve been fans of the Nest for awhile -they’re a great nonprofit who gives micro-credit loans to women artists in developing countries, and they’re funded by products sold on their web site. And we love to donate our letterpress printing and design to causes we believe in. So we were thrilled to design and print (pro bono) these lovely letterpress cards, to help the Nest with their donation campaign (the design is based on one of our new letterpress greeting cards).
Cynthia Converse, Syracuse, NYVendor: InvitationsWebsite: Bella FiguraAbout Me: Bella Figura is a wind-powered, eco-friendly letterpress shop committed to the fine artisanship of letterpress printing and the environment. Along with our sister company, Smock, we print our wedding invitations and stationery on only the finest luxury cotton and bamboo papers to ensure the most beautiful of prints in sight and to the touch, while working tirelessly to do our little piece for the good of the earth. We are hopelessly in love with our abundant collection of cast iron presses, farmer's markets, fall in Upstate NY, creating beautiful heirlooms for our brides, businesses that do good for the world, calligraphy, spending time in nature, contributing to the greater letterpress community, our rambling studios in a converted warehouse turned artist's haven, and our two year old in residence. Turning invitations into art on paper while dedicating ourselves to the environment is not what we do, it's who we are.
We’ve noticed a lot more clients choosing letterpress reply postcards over the traditional reply card + envelope for their wedding invitations. We’re all for this trend - it’s more eco-friendly (less paper!), and also helps keeps budgets down and keeps letterpress more affordable. Reply postcards cost less to letterpress, and you also save a little bit on the postage. We’ve also seen a huge movement to do 2 color letterpress designs as 1 color (see below for some examples) - a great way to keep your costs down as well while keeping letterpress in your budget. While reply postcards are slightly less formal than reply cards + envelopes, it’s still totally appropriate for even black tie events. Remember, we’re talking about letterpress postcards on a luxurious cotton paper — they’re still really, really lovely, and we know all of your guests will have trouble parting with them!
Cynthia Converse, Syracuse, NYVendor: InvitationsWebsite: Bella FiguraAbout Me: Bella Figura is a wind-powered, eco-friendly letterpress shop committed to the fine artisanship of letterpress printing and the environment. Along with our sister company, Smock, we print our wedding invitations and stationery on only the finest luxury cotton and bamboo papers to ensure the most beautiful of prints in sight and to the touch, while working tirelessly to do our little piece for the good of the earth. We are hopelessly in love with our abundant collection of cast iron presses, farmer's markets, fall in Upstate NY, creating beautiful heirlooms for our brides, businesses that do good for the world, calligraphy, spending time in nature, contributing to the greater letterpress community, our rambling studios in a converted warehouse turned artist's haven, and our two year old in residence. Turning invitations into art on paper while dedicating ourselves to the environment is not what we do, it's who we are.
What’s going to be hot in the letterpress wedding invitation world for 2009? Well, we looked into our crystal letterpresses and our first prediction is…
