Inside a Fully Custom, Metal-Effect Wedding Invitation Suite – A Crimson Letters Case Study.
It starts by asking questions & seeking clarification/
CASE STUDY
THE DESIGN BRIEF –
“I like mixed metals, with the painting as the black on black design as well as textured and layering.”
To say this was a first for me as a stationery designer is an understatement. Normally the clients that approach me, specifically approach me sheerly due to the type of work I put out into the world, upon my website, Instagram and social media. They all wish to have some type of classical baroque style design, Italian or French style artwork or floral watercolours. Yet here we are having a client out of nowhere, asking if I could design a metal inspired invitation suite, with layers and textures.
DESIGN INSPIRATION
As a luxury wedding invitation and stationery designer as a starting point I need to have some visuals. In this case the client loved the look of my general work but she really disliked flowers, French / Italian classical or ornate design. I remember her asking me, “IS THIS TOTALLY OUT OF YOUR WHEELHOUSE?” To be honest it was completely out of my wheelhouse but I had every confidence within my ability as an artist and designer and knew that whenever I am presented with a design brief, no matter what that design brief would be, I would translate that within my own unique voice to offer a new perspective in stationery design. I offered the client some visuals. She desired metal, texture, clean Ralph Lauren style typography. She loved the metal images. I reminded her that this would not be copied, however I would used this as a starting point and as design inspiration to create metal inspired luxury stationery, custom designed for her and her fiance in mind.
The Creative Challenge:
Why Metal – Inspired and Textured Design Needs a Human Touch to Execute on Paper.
How metal inspired custom wedding invitations are actually made. My client was looking for more than just a normal flat silver card, she wanted a more genuine metal appearance and also was obsessed with the feel and the depth of metal including the bumps and depth of colour.
I suggested using an embossing plate, that gives a raised up impression, to provide an impression of bumps and substance that you would naturally have from metal. By layering the printing upon a metallic silver card using an embossing plate, foil printing plate for a brown design. Following on from that was a layering of hand painted touches with black smudges and brushstrokes all angled in the same way to achieve the moody / stormy look that the client was attempting to achieve. The entire process took three separate production steps.
Production steps –
1 – Brown foil printing background design, 2 – Embossing (raised impression), 3- Hand painted additions.
Once the above steps had been completed I moved onto assembly to make luxury wedding invitation holders, a wallet style outer cover that would be placed inside the box and used to elegantly hold the invitations in place.
The Process of Design & Production
Materials & Techniques Used –
In addition to the above, metal inspired custom wedding invitations, there were many other parts of this stationery collection that needed to be designed. Other important pieces that remained where the details card ( which I had immense fun designing with lashings of thick hand painted acrylic paint ) think of a classical oil painting look where you can see the large brushstrokes, a website card and the invitation design itself.
INVITATIONS-
I had an idea related to the initial design inspiration image the client gave. It was to use the angled, sharp edged crumpled up bin to create some crumpled up, sharp edged invitation topper. This sheet would be crumpled to resemble the image ( from the design inspiration section above). I was rather hesitant to present this to the client, however I wanted to try and see how far I could stretch the idea that was provided. As a luxury custom invitation designer, it is my job to propose ideas and directions that my client would otherwise not think to consider. Typography for the couples name was kept very sleek, straightforward and modern and gold foil printed upon a dark black thick card placed underneath the crumpled paper.
DETAILS CARD –
The details card for this textured, moody invitation suite was indeed so very special. The client adored a layered look, layered being her word to describe hand painted thick brushstrokes or marks made by thick paint. I used a spatula type tool to hand painted thick, dramatic wide marks to create a very powerful affect upon a dark black card. See this video here via my Instagram to see this production painting process in real time. After the hand painting, this needed as much time as possible to completely dry out, at least a week, otherwise this type of thick acrylic paint can be sticky! Once dried out, I gold foil printed AFTER DUSK bottom right. Lastly I added the other back piece that had the full details printed in larger striking gold foil printing, upon a black card to carry on with the drama.
WEBSITE CARD-
The final card was made to represent and be directly inspired by the white and gold plasterwork interiors at Aman, Venice in Italy. The interiors were made up of white and deep gold ornate design. I had already previously played with this type of cement texture upon another client’s commission for their luxury wedding invitations for Villa Balbiano, you can see it here. I reused this same concept yet placing this upon an already hand crafted gold leaves design. once the plasterwork was complete, I added a layer of thick white paint and glued the back design upon it. The back design held all of the details and gold foiled limited typography including the QR code.
Problem Solving Moments-
Wax stamp sealing issue // Initially a striped wax seal design was made. However after receiving this custom designed wax seal stamp, I realised with dread and horror that no matter how I attempted to place the hot wax this stamp design was a disaster from start to finish. Sadly, every single time I tried to make a wax seal stamp, the wax would jam in some areas. I immediately had to come up with a plan B. Often times, when I work on custom designed luxury stationery and curated completely new designs, there will inevitably be problems. It is all about handling, addressing and coming upon with productive ways to solve those problems. That is part of the production process with luxury custom stationery.
I moved onto creating my own version of a marble wax seal design. You can see the full video here. It was a huge hit with my client – which as you can imagine was a huge relief and a wonderful surprise to me. Every single detail matters. It all counts and pull together in the end.
164 emails in total and a span of 4 months of work in total, the final product was completed.
HAPPY CLIENT-
“I LOVE THESE MORE THAN ANYTHING!!! I love these to the moon & back!! You have built this wedding with me….marble tile by marble tile! I love the look & feel & vision of it all!! I can’t explain how uninspired I was by all the other stationery options, I am so grateful you took my dark & stormy, mixed metals vision & ran with it!!!
164 emails in total and a span of 4 months of work in total.
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