We created these skyline invitations last spring for a couple who was planning a downtown wedding. When they asked about the possibility of including an image of Minneapolis on the invitations, we had just finished printing notecards featuring a modified photograph of our downtown skyline (the cards were featured in our blog last March). So it was a breeze to translate this into a sophisticated urban invitation suite. The skyline and invitation text were letterpress-printed in sepia ink on 110# natural white Strathmore wove-finish cover. We created matching smaller cards for the hotel information and RSVP.

You can read more about our recent wedding invitation projects in our blog archive. If you’re thinking about custom letterpress-printed wedding invitations for your big day, click here for general information about our design and printing services.

Each year, a few clients come to Lunlux for custom holiday cards. In recent years, we’ve seen a strong trend towards flat cards to accommodate photographs – a format we’re thrilled to work with! These cards can pack a lot of personality, and are typically less expensive than folded greeting cards. As these examples illustrate, we work closely with our clients to create cards suited to their specific photo, tailoring the design to uncommon sizes or drawing inspiration from the snapshot’s theme or color scheme. All the custom holiday cards shown were designed and letterpress-printed in our Loring Park studio, and our crafty customers took care of photo reproduction and mounting. Though we will, with the magic of a glue stick, mount the photos for you.

Because everything we do is custom, we’re adept at catering to unique specifics. Whether you want to incorporate text you’ve written (Mrs. Rasley wrote the charming prose on her and Ron’s star-studded monarch flat), use your favorite font (the snow-flakey card, below left, uses Bernhard Modern, the same font we used years ago on this couple’s wedding stationery), or see your family photo’s colors reflected in our printed work (on the buckslip below with orange wood-type-style lettering, the ink matches the trim on the tot’s jersey), we’re up for the challenge.

All the cards shown here were printed on Strathmore Writing wove-finish bristol cover, which feels very substantial but isn’t too expensive. But we work with a wide variety of stocks, from plush cotton to earthy recycled to vibrant colors. If you’d like to learn more about our custom design and printing services, you can browse our blog archives or visit the custom page of our website. And there’s still a bit of time for holiday or New Year cards this year. Get in touch with Jenni at our studio (our contact page has all the vitals) to schedule a consultation.

Hannah came to Lunalux over the summer in search of cards for her new business. Another designer had created a few logo variations that she liked; we made minor adjustments to optimize their look for letterpress printing, and incorporated the logo into business cards and correspondence cards. Hannah was really drawn to the colorful work on display in our shop, but it was important to her that the cards would be taken seriously by corporate contacts in the insurance business – the chunky Copperplate lettering in the logo and the clear communication of her contact information served this end well. But she didn’t want to cards to be boring or stuffy. The sunny yellow ink and modest but playful dots at the bottom of the cards brightened things up a bit and reflect her warm, vivacious personality. Initially she just planned to get business cards; by the end of the design process, she’d added notecards and envelopes to the order too.

The HDH Alliance business cards and notecards are letterpress-printed on bright white 130# Strathmore wove-finish bristol cover. HDH loved the idea of adding yellow edging to the cards, but with an eye on the bottom line, she decided to opt out. We were eager to see what it would look like, though, so we edged a little stack for her as a gift, and kept a stack for our samples too. Up to now, we’ve only done painted edges on much thicker card stock, so we were happy to see that the effect is still stunning on cards of this thickness. It’s relatively subtle on a single card, but seeing a stack of them with their perfect golden edges, they look delicious!

You can read about other personality-filled business stationery projects we’ve done in our blog archive; it you’re thinking about business cards or stationery for your self, you’ll find general information about our design and printing processes on the custom section of our website.

This project wrapped up months ago. But in honor of the spectacular fall weather we’re enjoying here in Minnesota (in November?!?!), this autumnal-colored wedding invitation gets the spotlight today. Nicole & Mike came to Lunalux over the summer in search of invitations for their September wedding at the University of Minnesota’s Weisman Art Museum. After a browse through our sample books, they zeroed in on a very graphic invitation suite we created a few years ago; they loved the design but wanted to update the color scheme and explore different typeface options. Considering their plans to marry in a modern art museum, the bold color choice was no surprise: orange and taupe on pearl white cards. The type was a harder nut to crack; we must have looked at their names in two dozen different fonts, ranging from formal script to chunky slab-serifs. This calligraphy-inspired lettering beat them all. The text and a flowering branch is printed in bright orange, over a taupe silhouette of that same branch. The 6.25-inch-square invitations and matching RSVP postcards and thank-you flats were all printed on 100% cotton Lettra cover, and paired with a vibrant orange envelopes. We’re especially pleased with the RSVP card, and the way the branch silhouette separates the mailing address from the rest of the card.

It’s a great pleasure for us to create unique custom wedding stationery, weather that means modifying an invitation we’ve already printed, or dreaming up something new. It’s a treat to help couples imagine the invitation of their dreams, and then bring it into being for them! You can read more about other custom wedding invitations we’ve created in our blog archive, or click on over to the custom wedding stationery page for general information about our process and pricing.

Last week we were asked to create invitations for the opening night of Thom Pham’s Wondrous Azian Kitchen, a much-anticipated new restaurant in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. Sometimes when clients approach us to turn around jobs in a matter of days, we simply can’t accommodate them because we’re so busy. In this instance, we were lucky enough to have a little wiggle room in our production schedule, so this invite went from concept to finished product in just 48 hours. Chris from Twincy, the agency that helped Pham concept and promote his new venture, asked us to incorporate the rooster graphic, use perforation somehow in the design, and find typographic inspiration in the restaurant’s high-profile neon sign. And here’s what we came up with. The buckslip invite measures 3.875 by 9.25 inches, and fits into a vibrant red open-end #10 envelope. The invites were printed in blazing red and orange inks in 130# bright white bristol cover, and we used our ancient step-down perforating machine to create the pin-hole perforation for the tear-off ticket.