Congratulations Paul and Kathy!

These custom letterpress invitations, if you can believe it, are 3.5" x 5" - what is normally the size of a response card. Gorgeous, don't you think? And I love how it looks with our brown paper packaging - so eco friendly, but it has such impact. Paul came up with the design, and Kathy came by the studio to pick up since I knew they were in a bit of a rush to get them out. She came at the same time I had a private letterpress workshop starting and took pictures of the presses.

Congratulations again to Paul and Kathy!

Congratulations Jaime and Patrick!

Working with clients like Jaime is the main reason I love the Your Letterpress program. Jaime loved the entire process, and I was more than happy to transform her design into gorgeous custom letterpress invitations.

Here is the entire letterpress invitation suite:

Jaime chose a gorgeous charcoal color and paired it with metallic gold for her invitations:

Another closeup of the letterpress invitation:

The letterpress response card and letterpress printed envelope:

And, to round off the letterpress invitation suite, the information/map card:

And here is a picture of our new more eco-friendly packaging. It's inspired by the notion of "brown paper packages tied up with string." I'm hoping that Joie Studio's letterpress invitations are one of your favorite things:

If I remember, I also assemble one invitation suite and put them into an envelope. I dressed up the invitation with a little bit of ribbon, which is totally optional, but I had some ivory ribbon to play around with:

Congratulations again Jaime and Patrick!

Congratulations Jean and Jay!

I don't know if I've ever printed so many custom invitation sets for the same wedding as I did for the weekend of October 9th and 10th. I have more custom letterpress invitations to share with you and it will probably spill into next week. Jean was the first client to contact me about the weekend in question, bringing me this lovely invitation suite she had Lucky Luxe design for her. Jean wanted some pieces flat printed, some pieces letterpress printed, and one piece both letterpress and flat printed, and I was more than happy to oblige.

Here is the entire invitation suite:

The invitation, 100% letterpress printed:

A close-up of the letterpress invitation suite:

Jean had two different response cards - one for her tech savvy guests who could respond online and one traditional response card that included a letterpress printed envelope:

And the directions card, where the blue is letterpress printed while the grey is flat printed:

Congratulations again Jean and Jay! I hope your big day went off without a hitch!

Congratulations Sonia & Eric!

Congratulations to Sonia and Eric! Sonia came to me with this gorgeous 1-color letterpress design incorporating two hot trends in wedding invitations - monogram & the ultra deLUXE A9 size (5.5" x 8.5").

Here is the corresponding response card:

Sonia also had us make her a custom return address rubber stamp for the envelopes:

Here is Sonia & Eric's invitation plate on the Vandercook. If you notice, there's a piece of paper sticking out from under the plate. The invite was low in that area so I built it up a little bit to get even impression:

And here are the letterpress invitations all packed up and ready to go to their new home. Sonia and Eric were one of the last ones to get the box packaging as we're moving towards more eco-friendly packaging (and much cuter, too!) for our custom letterpress invitation orders. Here they are, tied up with satin ribbon to help the invites and response cards stay in place during transit (and to dress up the packaging a little bit).

Congratulations again to Sonia & Eric!

Congratulations Constance and Russell!

Constance contacted me after I had already contracted three other custom letterpress projects for the weekend of October 9th-10th. When I remarked that it was a busy wedding weekend, she explained to me that she found this out as well because a lot of people wanted to marry on 10-10-10 and it was making the whole weekend busy. It was kind of a "duh" moment for me because I had some custom letterpress invitations (non-wedding) for that day and didn't make the connection.

I didn't know that Constance was Constance Zimmer from Entourage (she plays studio exec Dana Gordon) until my husband convinced me that really there weren't that many Constance Zimmers in the general Los Angeles area. And then it was kind of another "duh" moment. But I digress.

This custom letterpress invitation suite designed by Eliza Chaikin Kenan is so chic, incorporating navy blue ink and custom silhouettes. Constance's design called for the creation of a gatefold with her and her fiance's silhouette in front.

I especially love that the host of the wedding is Constance's 2 year old daughter Colette:

A picture of both the front and inside of the invitation, with the custom scoring that I made to turn the flat cardstock into a gatefold.

The front and back of the letterpress reply postcard. (Yes, I can letterpress print both sides of 110lb cardstock.) Notice that the return address is once again to Colette? So adorable:

Constance was so kind as to send me back an invitation suite so I could see the vintage stamps that she used:

More vintage stamps on the return postcard:

And the custom letterpress invitation suite all together so you can see the front and back of each piece.

Letterpress + navy blue + silhouette + vintage postage + personal wording = awesomely stylish letterpress invitations! As any letterpress printer will tell you, huge solid forms like that are hard to accomplish, especially with darker ink colors, but it came out beautifully.

Congratulations again to Constance and Russell, and happy belated birthday to the ever wonderful Ms. Zimmer!

Congratulations Carmen and Shane!

I worked with the ever wonderful Jennifer Olmstead on this gorgeous invitation suite, which had a deep purple paired with slate grey. I will tell you now, dark color + large solid areas is no easy feat for letterpress. And these cards are rather interesting in that only the invitation is letterpress printed. To save on time and cost, the response postcards were flat printed on the same Reich Savoy 118lb 100% cotton paper that the invitation was. Using the same paper helps to make the invitation suite more cohesive when different methods are selected for different pieces.

Here are some closeups of the invitation. I love the way the P pops out amongst the ornate swirls and dark background:

The text in slate grey:

And the front and back of the flat printed response postcard:

I hope you enjoyed these wedding invitations! Congratulations again to Carmen and Shane!

Mr. Vandercook & Ms. Pearl have earned a break...

Mr. Vandercook (above) and Ms. Pearl have been busy churning out letterpress invitations. The last custom letterpress invitations for events the weekend of October 9th and 10th have finally gone out, so I finally get a couple days not chained to the presses to clean my studio and catch up on blogging and computer work.

There is an unofficial blog policy here that I don't post letterpress invitations until after the event. But golly I cannot wait to share a couple of the invites that I've worked one. Here's a sneak peek of one that studio visitors have been gaga over:

This particular invite combines a number of hot invitation trends right now: DIY design, letterpress, silhouettes, navy blue, RSVP postcard, vintage stamps. Hot, hot, hot. I cannot wait for the wedding to happen so I can share the full invitation suite with you.

More soon!

Your Letterpress Business Cards

Well, maybe the title of this post is a little misleading, because the letterpress business cards aren't yours, they are for YOUR LETTERPRESS at Joie Studio. I wanted to show these off because I am so so tickled as to how gorgeous the cards came out. These were printed on Joie Studio's newest house paper, Reich Savoy 118lb in bright white. The back of the card was flat printed with a gorgeous pattern and the front holds both letterpress and flat printing. The reason I did this was because I wanted the "Your Letterpress" signature to actually look like a signature -- you know, when you use a ball point pen and it presses down into the paper and leaves an impression after you've signed...kind of like what happens after the printing press presses the paper into the plate...

I think the results are absolutely fabulous! With "Your Letterpress" as the only thing letterpress printed, it really makes the "Your Letterpress" pop just a little bit more -- adding a textural element to the card. PLUS the card is for a letterpress studio!

The dual printing method on this card is quite awesome and I'm totally in love with the result. And the best part is that since it's flat printed, it costs less for me to do this double sided card than it would have to do the 2-color card just for the front (nevermind the front of the card is actually 3-color).

Your Design...Your Letterpress

I remember quite vividly back in the day before Joie Studio when my friends and I were getting married that invitations were a big mess. It was hard. There were tears. I had ordered invitations within our budget, which wasn't very much, and it came on really crappy paper and there were oil splotches on some of them. And they were from a pretty major company, too. And all my friend wanted was an invitation with a burgundy backing and for whatever reason that wasn't possible. And then I ended up designing and printing my own rehearsal dinner invitations and it was exactly what I wanted and I thought, "Well, heck, I should have done this in the first place."

One of my goals for my wedding invitation clients is to make the experience as low stress as possible. To make it a fun and happy experience. And give people access to letterpress. Letterpress is beautiful, allowing printing on the most gorgeous art papers that won't normally take digital print methods. I know from looking through countless invitation books that sometimes you just can't find what you're looking for. And most brides and grooms today are savvy enough to design their own invitations or have a friend who can help them get it to print ready format.

I get asked a lot if I will print designs not my own. Yes. There are caveats, but yes. Then I ask if I can provide paper. Yes. Absolutely. You can't letterpress print without paper. Then I get asked if the invitations come with envelopes. Why, yes. Yes, they do. Unless you want special ones. But you get matching envelopes, yes. I can help you source envelopes (I also remember a trip to five different paper stores in the LA area looking for the right envelope) if you want a special color or type. And the pricing I give is pricing without the designing element, because you've already taken care of that. Based on your design, I can give you suggestions on how to save more.

This is how the idea of Your Letterpress was born. Letterpress printing in itself is both an art and a craft. We have these antique presses with peculiarities to them and we learn to compensate for our presses, temperature, humidity, paper type, ink type, etc., etc., etc. You can take care of the design, we will print with great care. And from experience, those interested in letterpress are interested in the process of it, the care that goes into the making of letterpress goods, the handmade artisan quality of the printing. So we've dedicated a camera and a videocamera to the studio so we can take pictures and video of the process for those interested.

If something like Your Letterpress was around when I got married, I would have done that because according to my pricing it was all of a dinner for 4 out at KFC more to have letterpress instead of what I received.

Check out Your Letterpress and contact us at YourLetterpress {at} JoieStudio.com with any questions.