Lunalux letterpress stationery » invitation

Design + Print: Wondrous perforated invitations

Jenni — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:07:44 +0000

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.

In-house calligrapher, at your service

Jenni — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:30:57 +0000

Helen & Erik live on the east coast, but they discovered Lunalux while visiting Erik’s family in Minneapolis. Erik gets credit for designing their wedding invitation suite, including the fantastic tree illustration. I suggested a few minor edits to the text and the layout, but my main contribution was calligraphy on the invitations and envelopes. The hand-written names are letterpress-printed along with the rest of the invitation text; I wrote the bride and groom’s names over and over again, until each curve was just right, then scanned the best versions and dropped them into the layout like a graphic. The full set – wedding invitation, rehearsal dinner invitation & response card – was letterpress-printed in black ink on pearl white 100% cotton Lettra 110# cover, with matching invitation and response envelopes. When all the work of printing and trimming was finished, I set to the hefty task of hand-addressing the envelopes too, so the mailing address matches the text on the invitations themselves.

I have worked at my penmanship for many years, so it’s a great honor for me to share it with my clients. I have addressed a few wedding invitations in my time, and have occasionally incorporated my handwriting into greeting card designs, but this is the first time that my lettering has been letterpress-printed on an invitation. And it was such a thrill to see the finished product! Since this project was completed a few months ago, I have taken on a few other exciting hand-lettering projects – I look forward to featuring them here in our blog in the coming weeks.

Curious about our letterpress-printed wedding stationery? Click here to read more about our design and printing services. You might also enjoy browsing through our blog archives, where we’ve featured many of our favorite wedding projects.

Design + Print: leafy invites for a fall wedding

Jenni — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:53:15 +0000

Luanne and Roger wanted a very simple invitation for their at-home wedding reception last month. Browsing through sample books at the Lunalux studio, they fell for this earthy paper combo we used recently for Leah and Jeanie’s wedding invitations – brown kraft envelopes, paired with burlap-textured card stock. Working with that warm color palette, we created a stand-alone invitation (no response card needed, because the invitation includes an R.S.V.P. telephone number) featuring sans-serif text and autumn leaves. Perfect for October nuptials! We also created smaller notecards imprinted with the leaves only, for the couple to use as thankyou notes when they returned from the honeymoon. Everything is letterpress-printed in orange and sepia inks on 100% recycled papers.

Do you want to learn more about our custom-designed letterpress-printed wedding statioenry? Click here for general information and pricing, or click here to read more from our blog archives about other invitations we’ve created. If you’re in the market for wedding invitations, we invite you to stop by our studio store during our regular hours (Tues.-Sat. 11a.m.-6p.m.) to take a look at the work we do, or call 612-373-0526 to schedule a formal consultation.

Design + Print: earth-friendly wedding stationery

Jenni — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:34:49 +0000

Leigh found Lunalux while searching the internet for wedding stationery that is both sophisticated and earth-friendly. She wanted invitations printed on 100% recycled paper but didn’t want them to look crafty. It was a fun challenge to work with a long-distance client who had very specific needs! Leigh found a shower invitation on our website that was almost perfect (click here to read our post about it from last February). She loved the composition, but knew that her botany-wise relatives would hassle her for using seasonally inaccurate dogwood blossoms on invitations for a August wedding. Because all Lunalux invitations are custom-designed to suit our individual clients, I assured her it would be no problem to replace the dogwood with a different floral graphic. I created an illustration of trumpet vines and sourced heavy 100% recycled card stock and envelopes from Michigan’s earth-loving French Paper, staying in touch with Leigh every step of the way via phone and email. The trumpet vines are incorporated into the invitation, RSVP cards, thank-you notes and place cards in deep, saturated shades of orange and turquoise. When Leigh received the finished product, she was thrilled – and we were thrilled by her enthusiastic thank-you. “The invitations are perfect! Now everyone will see that is IS possible to have environmentally friendly invitations that are elegant.”

Looking for unique wedding invitations? Click here to read more about our design and letterpress printing services.

Design + Print: wedding invitation booklet

Jenni — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:44:53 +0000

Even though it’s practically a holiday, I’m enjoying a bustling and productive day in the studio. Planning to work late, even! We’re expecting a little visit from Blue and Jack, a couple whose unique wedding invitations we printed earlier this year. They’re having a night-before-the-wedding party at the dance studio next door (hello, Four Seasons), and might pop in for a visit before they get their champagne on. The bride and groom live in London, but are enjoying Independence Day nupltials at the James J. Hill Library in downtown St. Paul. The bookish locale inspired wedding invitation booklets with their names pressed into the cover, and pages for the invitation, travel information and response card. Extra booklet covers will be repurposed as covers for the ceremony program (Blue took care of the detailed interior pages) and thank-you notes. We also printed two A2-sized envelopes – the bride’s parents’ address was used for the invitation envelopes, but Blue and Jack’s London address went on envelopes for the thank-yous.

The booklet is made from three folded cards, printed in navy blue and saturated yellow on 100% cotton Lettra cover. The last page, an RSVP postcard, was micro-perforated for easy removal. We nested the pages together and gave the assembled invitations a face-trim. With such thick pages in the booklet, interior pages jutted out of the cover a bit; this final post-assembly trim left the finished piece looking more, well, finished. Blue took on the Herculean task of hand-stitching over 100 invitations. I tried to stitch a few together for sample albums and photo shoots, but kept pricking my finger and messing up the snowy white cover. So our sample shown here is bound with a slim satiny ribbon along the spine.

I’m really proud of how this invitation turned out. Blue and Jack get lots of credit for coming to Lunalux with the idea of a booklet invitation, and for giving me a nice balance of articulate direction and creative freedom. The finished invitation feels substantial and special, and looks like it was meant to be letterpress-printed. The unexpected format executed with classic typography turned out to be perfect for their wedding in the stacks. The ornamentation is bookish, but the exaggerated proportion of the dingbats on the cover add a modern touch to an otherwise simple, classic composition.

Design + Print: train-inspired wedding invitations

Jenni — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:12:45 +0000

With Taylor & TJ’s wedding reception planned at the Minnesota Transportation Museum’s Jackson Street Roundhouse, the blushing bride wanted train-themed invitations for their big day. Our challenge was to create a suite that would cultivate nostalgia for old railroad culture without explicitly incorporating trains, train tracks, and engineers with their tell-tale caps – we’re talking wedding stationery, not invitations to a little boy’s 4th birthday party! After poring over pictures of early-1900′s steam locomotives and train-related ephemera, this simple suite took shape. The icon on the top of the invitation, which includes the couple’s names, wedding date and wedding location, was inspired by old railroad logos. The typeface for their names was chosen because of its similarities to style of numbers painted on many old engines. Each of the three cards (inviation, reception card and RSVP postcard) were letterpress-printed in black ink on pearl white 100% cotton Lettra cover, and paired with metallic copper envelopes. The back of the response cards included a request for the guests to jot down a personal message or image for the couple. We love the vintage feeling of the finished invitation, and the basic black and white color scheme. Like all of the invitations we create, this one can be customized for different events. Imagine how great it would look printed in a combination of red and black inks, or on a rougher material like chip board. Thinking about custom invitaitons for your wedding or other event? Click here to read more about our design and printing services, or browse our blog archive to read about other invitation packages we’ve created.

Design + Print: gladiolus wedding invitations

Jenni — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:07:22 +0000

We started working with Kate and Nick late last year, when they ordered a bunch Lunalux quote postcards to use as their save-the-date announcements. They got in touch with us again a few months later, excited to work on custom-designed invitations for their Big Day. With little direction aside from “We like glads,” we developed a few different concepts for the New York couple to consider. The winning design features a bunch of gladiolus in full bloom, exploding from the base of the invitation. The vibrant violet and green inks, letterpress-printed in natural white wove-finish card stock, are ideal for a summery wedding. The full set also included RSVP postcards and matching thank-you cards. Click on the photo above for a larger view.

The postcard they used for their save-the-dates featured a quote by poet James Tate. This design was originally created as a Valentine’s Day promotional postcard back in 2006, but all these years later, we still adore the lovey text unexpectedly paired with an image of an old rooster weather vain. The ruby red and cyan blue inks really pop off the bright white card stock. It’s gratifying to know that it was re-purposed as a wedding mailer, and think it was upstaged only by the invitations that followed!

Click here to read more about our graphic design and printing services. Or browse our blog archives to see other recent wedding stationery projects.

Design + Print: recycled wedding invitations

Jenni — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:38:23 +0000

In honor of Earth Day, we’re highlighting our most recently printed “green” wedding invitation. We first worked with this couple months ago when we created passport-style save-the-dates to notify guests of their Canadian wedding ceremony and Minnesotan reception (check out this post from last September for a picture, and to read more). The over-the-top announcements were a big hit, but Leah and Jeanie wanted a more traditional, uncomplicated package for the invitations themselves. We letterpress-printed invites and RSVP cards in green and brown ink on French Paper’s cream chordtone cover, a 100% recycled heavily textured stock. The brown-bag kraft envelopes are 100% recycled too. We also printed notecards with just the tree icon, for the couple to use as thank-you notes and social stationery post-nuptials (piggy-backing the thank-you cards in this way minimized the amount of materials used for the project, and saved the couple a bit of dough). The gritty, organic materials were a perfect fit for this earthy design, and felt like a good match for these down-to-earth brides-to-be.

Do you love these invites almost as much as you love the planet? Give us a call, we’d love to print some for you! As with all of our invitation packages, this design can be customized to suit your needs. Click here to read more about our custom wedding stationery, or browse the blog archives to see other invitations suites we’ve created.

Design + print: bridge wedding invitations

Jenni — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:22:55 +0000

Heather’s eyes widened as she ran her fingers over her wedding invitations for the first time. The ecru card with gold lettering and a sepia silhouette of a bridge was hot off the press, and designed especially for her and Michele. She referred to the cards as “paper porn,” perhaps one of the best compliments we’ve ever received. Letterpress-printed on 130# cover, with matching RSVP postcards, map cards and mailing labels for the dark brown envelopes.

Design + Print: Squirrelly wedding invitations

Jenni — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:37:00 +0000

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.