A new take on engraved

I am LOVING this. JUST LOVING this. I have to first credit one of my favorite fellow Philadelphia bloggers OhJoy! for this great find and I wanted to share with all of you. This is a new company in North Carolina called Oslo Press, custom designing invitations on thin slabs of wood. It looks just wonderful. I would love to get one of these in the mail. Imagine your rustic vineyard wedding or your backyard barn wedding with these! Above are some of my favorites. I really love the envelope too with the red design. Of course, they aren't cheap. But if you're spending the money anyway, these make quite the impact.

Invitations and Placecards and Menu's, Oh My! Volume 1.

OK, I have been asked to post some information about type and layouts in regards to event invitations. I started doing some research so I could provide some useful information and also some pretty pictures to maybe inspire some of you or at least entertain...Well, I got very involved and realized that this is not going to be one simple post. No. There is so much fantastic info and imagery out there that could not only inspire invitations or menus, but also the whole vision of your event. Therefore, there will be multiple postings about this issue to come, but I will start out with the basics. Today I will discuss alignment:
The first thing a graphic designer learns - don't center text on a page (but if you do, try to make it interesting, like this). In most cases, centering can come across unoriginal. Centering text is what we designers refer to as 'static', meaning that it is stuck on the page as just a mass of matter that simply does not flow. So instead of centering your information, consider something else. Here are some ideas....

This is called making text 'dynamic'. Anything. Left Justified. Maybe Right Justified (maybe). Have some of the text going off the page, make certain words bigger or bolder. Make certain letters red. Of course you need to have form (the look) and function (it needs to make sense), but have fun with it and be creative. I have provided some examples of interesting invites from Bird and Banner and Two Paper Dolls, above. I will not advertise centered type...well, unless it's this by Bird and Banner, one of my newest fave Philly based company's right now.

xx Lyndsi

Pretty paper stuff

These return address labels are pretty and I found them posted on Holly's Plate. I like them a lot. So pretty for the back of your invitation. They literally have like 100 choices in design. Having a winter wedding? Use the ice skates. Having a rose wedding? Use the roses. Having a frog on a hat wedding? Use the frog on a hat. Ok you get the point....I know the pic is tough to see but they are fab return labels. They remind me of those old fashioned herb diagrams. I forget what they are called. But I think these are just great.