A Tale of Two Invitations

Years ago we distilled our wedding invitation offerings into four distinct collections. The purpose of this was to streamline our rather time consuming process in a way that left room for customization but would speed up the design and typesetting. Each collection focuses on a specific style and era of typography that gives us parameters in which to work while maintaining flexibility of papers, colors and overall tone. Of all the collections, the City of Big Ornaments is near to my heart because of its ties to the city and the challenges of creating a representational work with the ornamentation in the studio. It's also one of our most popular invitations and we've done versions of Phoenix, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Houston and of course, Chicago.

Emmy and Ira came to us desiring this style for not one but two invitations, both Chicago and New York. They planned to have two wedding celebrations with slightly different guest lists, so we had the fun of altering the skylines and colors to accommodate both places. We like to cater the skylines specifically to buildings or places each couple prefers, even if it is only a rough representation. Emmy and Ira had two such requests for their New York invitation:Here they are in ornamental form, along with a shot of the final print:

These are the final invitations for both locations. We used heavy kraft and white paper stock, both 100% recycled with speckles. Mossy green envelopes worked for both sets, and we flipped the color palette for ink on each.

This style works best with simple typography that projects a mid-century vibe. It's not too overpowering or stylized so as to compete with the ornamental cityscape. Emmy and Ira liked the idea of the type looking like business forms from the 50's.

Our collaboration with soon-to-be-married couples often ends with the invitations, but we had the pleasure of working with Emmy and Ira on a number of additional pieces to coordinate with their invitations. Skipping a guest book, they decided to print two large pieces that could be signed by all of their guests and then framed in their home. Again, we designed these to mimic the invitations with some different elements between the two. These cityscapes were created with wood type and ornaments given the 18x14" size of the prints, and they are a little more generic so they could be easily flipped and repeated.

Cds as wedding favors are a popular choice and we created simple pocket sleeves for these here. Years ago I designed this custom die for pocket sleeves to resemble vintage LP sleeves; we've used it for hundreds of projects.

Last but not least, Emmy and Ira needed little placecards for their Chicago event. These are simple tented cards with just a piece of the skyline in miniature form. Individual names are handwritten... can you imagine setting type to print each individual one?!

As we acquire more type and ornaments, I look forward to creating new, varied and more complex cities and representational images in the spirit of clever letterpress printers of the past. But we can't accomplish this without the enthusiasm and imagination of our current and future clients.

The Society of Typographic Arts

We recently finished a broadside project for the Society of Typographic Arts, located right here in Chicago. Obviously, typographic was the way to go! The broadside is intended as a welcome gift to new members and for promotional purposes, so it's scaled to 8x10" to fit in a mailer. It's printed simply in just one color on each side.

I created a circular shape without actually putting any of the type on a curve. There are about 9 different typefaces of historical importance, combined with 19th century ornaments forced into a more modern configuration. Here's a little close up:

The backside of the print has a small and subtle colophon that's directly behind where the front circle of type is.

For this piece, the form images are just as beautiful as the actual print:

It's always great to work with folks that love type as much as we do!

Amazing, Beautiful and Adventurous

When a client comes to you and says they want an invitation with an ornamental octopus and a frog with a waistcoat, you don't turn them down! Such was the case this Spring when we were approached to do an invitation celebrating a woman never interested in marriage and a stand up guy with two kids. Have fun with it, they said, as the wedding would be a celebration on many fronts. So we did: The octopus definitely gave us a run for it, as it stylistically couldn't be too far off from the frog image and the delicate typefaces. So instead of using larger wood type elements that seemed out of place, the whole thing was created using 3 different border ornaments.

Before printing the ornaments, I carved a simple linocut of the octopus shape and laid that down first in transparent ink for guidelines.

The invitation was printed in four colors, one at a time. After the transparent ink (this is usually used to create lighter tints of saturated inks) was done, the green came next, followed by the orange. Both are set up at the same time for the initial proof to make sure the leading and spacing would all be correct. Then the orange is taken out so the green can be printed. When the green is done, the orange is put back into the form and the green is taken out.

Here you can see all but the blue set up and ready to proof.

Blue was the final color. There were a number of elements to get right here, from the top hat and face of the octopus to the curved type and plate of the frog. It was a joy to use some really beautiful type on this one, including the 2013. The studio only has this in figures, so it was a treat to finally have a good use for them. The June 28th is set in Headletter, a Chicago-designed typeface from Barnhart Bros. & Spindler.

And here's the full octopus in all of its glory.

The invite was printed on gray chipboard and scored so that it would fold into a 6x9" envelope, which was navy blue to match the ink. This was such a treat to design and print; we love a unique challenge! And all the best to the happy family.

All Aboard!

This past winter, I had the pleasure of printing graduation announcements/party invitations for the University of Wyoming College of Law graduates. They celebrated in style at the charming Laramie Depot Museum, a must see for vintage train enthusiasts. The location drove the direction of the design, right down to the muted color palette, as you can see here:

This poster was a long one, at 12x22", a bit long for our press to print comfortably, and so it was done in separate passes for the top and bottom. The top went first as you can see here, followed by the bottom section for each color (three altogether).

I thought it would be fun to throw a curve into the layout to break it up a bit and mimic some of the vintage train posters in the Starshaped collection. This involved a little creativity in the form, as you can see from the diagonal leads and furniture. The small train is a copper cut I found years ago.

One of my favorite bits is the Ombree border around the reply and contact info. It requires a bit of tricky manipulation but with a little effort you can come up with all sorts of combinations to create square and curved corners as well as 'dips' in the middle of any line. Sadly, my collection of Ombree has seen a lot of love in its lifetime and has many damaged spots. However, I recently tracked down a brand new set (well, not new, but never used), so it'll be making many more appearances in the near future.

Here you can see both the curved type and the beaten up Ombree border:

I also found a new cast of this track-like border that seemed perfect for the occasion. Graduation is printed in both the brown and green to give it a little more emphasis. The All Aboard type is actually cut on a diagonal and has it's own spacing to make it gel with everything else. There's always a lot of improvising going into posters; there is no N to fit with Invited, so I had to find a smaller one that would work. These are the joys of working with hand set type as opposed to digital; problems you never imagined pop up and need to be solved, which keeps the process from getting stale and takes the design in a direction that you may not have anticipated in the thumbnail sketching phase.

Congrats to the Class of 2013! Hope the party was as swingin' as the poster.

Partners in Crime

This year has seen many specialty prints in the studio, including ketubahs, or Jewish marriage certificates, and this was one of our favorites. Michelle and John wanted something that was very typographic for their ketubah, and if it could reference their location and love of the ocean, all the better. Here's the final piece:

The very pale clouds were printed with a hand carved linoleum cut and add just a soft touch of sky behind the text.

Typographic enough?

The form for this piece was particularly impressive. Their names and the ampersand are wood, while the rest is metal, with a hint of deco to it. Force justified type presents a few challenges, given that the spacing has to be done by hand. There are hundreds of little brass and copper thin spaces in between most of the letters in this form.

Cityscapes are always fun, and San Francisco is no exception. We've had a little experience with the Golden Gate Bridge, so it was a bit easier this time around. The city and text are printed in steel gray, with a red that mimics the bridge alongside the pale blue sky and ocean.

Congrats to Michelle and John! Enjoy your new life together in your beautiful city.