my day: the paper

Okay, on to the paper!  I have had a lot of questions about fonts and such so I will go piece by piece with a short summary of each. If you have a detailed question please leave it in the comments and I will answer it the best I can!  I really did have so much fun designing and putting together all of this!  I hope to one day grow my design business and am currently working on a few different designs so that I can open an etsy shop soon!

The invite suite:

I probably went through 10 different design concepts before coming to this one. As a designer you have all these ideas in your head, all of them excellent (obviously!) and out of those you have to decide which one is ‘you’.  Eventually we decided that we wanted something clean, classic, and not too girly.  We chose grey and marigold as our colors. (I later added in shades of pink)  I use Adobe Illustrator for all of my designs.  The main font used is called Bodini Svty Two SC ITC TT Book. I am not sure where I got that font… but when I am in need of a font, whether it is super classic or super silly, I always hit up Dafont.  It is also a great resource for widgits, as is Briar Press.

Save the dates:

These were the only things, besides the napkins, that I gocco’d.  I really wanted the white on color look, and the only way I could DIY that was with the gocco.  And even though the white was not as bright as I wish it would have been, it was so easy to do and I really enjoyed the process. I would recommend a gocco to anyone and everyone, except I am pretty sure they are hard to come by these days. I am hoarding my supplies for new projects. I feel like Elaine, hoarding her sponges. Like, is this project gocco worthy? Ha oh man.

The invites and rsvp’s:

I bought all paper and envelopes from Paper Source. I bought the marigold yarn from this etsy seller (and we wrapped the bridesmaids bouquets in the grey) and I bought full page labels for the address labels. I used my Epson Stylus Photo R220 to print them all.  I love this printer because of the many borderless sizes it prints, but it is time to upgrade to an all in one. Any suggestions?

Rehearsal Invites:

I threw these together last minute, more as a fun thing to design than a necessary piece of information. I used Fortuna Dot for the pink font and Filosofia Regular for the grey.

Rehearsal Menu:

Shower Thank You’s:

These were a lot of fun to make. I am in love with the font, MA Sexy, it is just so girly and fun and worked perfectly for this project. The kitchen utensils are actually widgets, and the font name is DJ Kitchen.

Programs:

The programs went through a few looks before coming to these. I incorporated the circles from the little invitation seal, as well as the yarn.

Kids Activity Books:

The activity books were fun to make and proved to be a hit at the reception!  I honestly can’t remember all of the sources for the images, which is why I am not selling these at this time. I just googled anything related to Kids, Weddings and Coloring and took from here and borrowed from there. I then tweaked each thing using Illustrator to fit my needs and color scheme.

Reception Paper:

For the reception paper I gocco’d napkins as well as made cake descriptions and a bar menu. Again, it was all printed on my photo printer using paper from Paper Source.  The white frames were from Ikea and the napkins were from Party City.

Tips: If you enjoy designing things on the computer, then try doing your own invitations. If you don’t have a good printer, go to Kinkos.  You can save so much money doing these on your own. If you don’t enjoy designing, well, then hire me to do it for you!

But really, if you want to get more into it I would recommend finding a design program that works for you. Like I said, I use Adobe Illustrator, but you can use InDesign or even Photoshop if you had to. A good photo printer that can print borderless is key. My Epson has been good to me and I would recommend the brand to anyone.

Use sites like Dafont and Briar Press to your advantage. Just be careful not to steal anyones work (You will see the distinctions on the sites.)

And have fun with it! Look around at designers sites, find inspiration and play around with your ideas. If you have any questions that I did not answer, again, please leave them in the comments and I will get to them!

Q&A:

Nicole asked: “Could you elaborate on what benefits you have found in doing {borderless printing} over regular printing with a border.”
Answer: Borderless printing is excellent if you want a design to come all the way to the edge of the page.  Here are some examples:

This way you don’t have to trim off the sides to get that ‘printed to the edge’ look.
Nicole also asked: “How do you rate your Epson? Have you tried printing with it on different types of paper products?”
Answer: I love my Espon, although in it’s old age (5+ years) it is having a bit of difficulty feeding the paper though. I would definitely recommend the brand though. I would also recommend getting a printer that has 6 ink colors over 4. With 6 you can more accurately print the color you see on your screen.  As for printing on different types of paper products, I haven’t tested out too many things. I will say that, even before its old age, it has a little difficulty feeding through thicker, textured papers. It will do it, you just have to help each page feed, which can get tiring when you are printing 100+ invites!

Have any of you guys found a printer that you love? One that you hate? Help me out here with a recommendation!

The Program, Activity Books and Reception Paper images were all by Studio 7. The rest were by me.