Design + Print: Wondrous perforated invitations

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.

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!

Green wedding invitations

Couples are increasingly concerned about environmental factors when planning their weddings. Lunalux addresses these concerns by offering recycled paper options to clients, and suggesting lower-waste variations like RSVP postcards rather than RSVP cards with envelopes.

For Laura and Ian, who are planning an intimate wedding at their own home, low environmental impact is high priority. I worked with them to develop a simple, creative invitation. It’s just one piece, a 5.5 by 8.5-inch card perforated in the middle to fold to 4.25 by 5.5 inches; the top half is the invitation, the bottom half is the response card. The invitations were folded and taped closed, mailed without an envelope. Guests just tear the invitation in half, save the invitation, and return the RSVP postcard. We printed on 100% recycled French Paper, a small Michigan paper mill that is not only a pioneer in the recycled-paper industry, but has a long history of earth-friendly practices.