Design + Print: Squirrelly wedding invitations

We recently created this unique wedding invitation for Nicole and Zeb, a sweet couple with a nutty sense of humor. At our initial meeting, the betrothed were interested in two different concepts: intricate scroll/vine illustrations, or a squirrel in a tree. After reviewing our initial round of invitation mock-ups, the squirrel was the clear winner. It’s so much fun when clients come to us with original ideas, and we get to bring those ideas to life. I’m very pleased with how these invitations turned out – the quirky motif, cool color scheme, and chunky typesetting are all fresh elements for us, and it’s always a treat to do something new!

We developed the squirrel-in-the-tree graphic using a few different pieces of clip art, and paired the image with sturdy, interesting fonts. The invitation, RSVP postcard, information/directions card, and thank-you flat were all letterpress-printed in gray and navy ink on florescent white 100% cotton Lettra cover, and paired with pale gray envelopes.

Like all of our wedding invitations, Nicole & Zeb’s suite was custom-designed just for them. We specialize in working closely with couples to develop wedding stationery that reflects their personality and the mood of the event, be it whimsical and fun or romantic and old-fashioned. Click here to read more about our wedding invitation services, or check out our blog archive to read about other invitations we’re created.

Wedding invitation inspires holiday card

Over the summer, I worked with my niece and her fiancé on invitations for their very casual wedding. They planned an intimate outdoor ceremony, followed by a great big picnic. Even though the bride is a vegan, the wedding menu was sure to include burgers and brats – so the happy couple laughed as they decided to feature swooning cows on the invites. Monica supplied a darling sketch, which I translated into a smoother, press-ready illustration. They also wanted to use green products where feasible, so we letterpress-printed on recycled chip board and envelopes from earth-loving French Paper Company. The autumnal color scheme and non-traditional wording was a great reflection of what turned out to be a beautiful, un-fussy, perfectly Them wedding celebration!

I loved the cows so much that, with Monica’s permission, the lady cow now graces one of our new holiday cards. This time the cow is printed in black ink on bright white wove-finish card stock, and she’s holding a poinsettia rather than a daisy. “Have a Very Dairy Christmas” she exclaims – corny, I know, but I couldn’t help myself. This year, the Dairy Christmas card will be available exclusively at the Lunalux studio store ($4 for a single card, $16 for a box of 8). We’re working on a bunch of new cards which we will start to promote through our sales reps after the holidays, so hopefully the holiday cow will make her way into other stationery shops next year!

Kiss my what?

2008 has kept us so busy with custom design and printing projects like wedding invitations and personal stationery, we haven’t had much energy to develop new products for our nationally distributed wholesale line. But it’s always on our minds, and we add new designs when we can. We recently printed a couple of fun, random new cards. Like “Kiss my grits,” shown to the left (click on the picture for a larger view). I loved the sitcom Alice in the late 1970s, especially the star’s brassy co-worker Florence “Flo” Jean Castleberry. At my request, Katie the intern (who has, very sadly, moved on – now she’s designing stuff for the Minneapolis Public Libraries, and selling cards on Etsy) created this portrait of Flo, so we could help revive her catchphrase.

Also new: this tongue-in-cheek greeting, printed on 80# bright white vellum cover (which contains 30% post-consumer waste, though we don’t brag about it on the back of the card). I love the planet as much as the next person, and at Lunalux we do our best to recycle and use environmentally friendly products. But after hearing and/or reading so many sales pitches regarding the complicated environmental practices of various paper mills, packaging suppliers and gift manufacturers, I can’t tell any of it apart anymore. Hence the exasperated whale.

These goofy cards are already for sale in the Lunalux studio store, and will be distributed to our sales reps in short order. If there’s a card store near you that should have these in stock, let us know and we’ll send them a catalog!

Design + Print: this one goes out to all the ladies

Creating custom-designed letterpress-printed wedding stationery is a lot of fun because each project is unique. This one, especially so. It’s our first-ever wedding invitation for a lesbian couple. They read about the perforated invites we created last summer for my friends Laura & Ian, and wanted us to use that same format: invitation and RSVP on one card, 5.5 by 8.5 inches, perforated to fold in half and mail on its own, no envelope needed. The bride and bride, Gail & Marisa, purchased a bird painting and asked us to use that image on the invitations. I love the graphic, and had fun developing several concepts for their consideration. Click on the image to the left for a larger view.

After much e-mailing back and forth (they live in New York, but Gail remembers us from her days living in the Twin Cities), they settled on this design. We used brown and red inks on 110# natural white wove-finish cover, and created the pinhole perforations with our step-down perforator. Their return address, and a bit of Yiddish, is printed on the reverse. Gail wrote about their invitations on their blog – click here to read about how much they love them!

Letterpress business stationery inspires key chain

Last November, we printed notecards and letterhead for a film production company. Writer-director Rob Perez had relocated from Hollywood to Minnesota to shoot an independent movie, and he came to Lunalux for distinctive business stationery for his project. Because a goat plays a pivotal role in the film (titled Nodoby, starring hometown talent Sam Rosen), the design featured an image of a goat.

A few weeks ago I ran into Rob next door at Nick and Eddie. Filming had just wrapped and he was headed back to L.A. for editing. With one last thank-you for a job well done, Rob gave me a keychain inspired by the goat image we’d created. This marks the first time that anything I’ve made has been translated into a 3D metal object.

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