DESCRIPTION Alyssa and Josh's Album Cover Wedding Invitation CLIENT Self: Alyssa Zukas and Josh Korwin DATE April 2010 DESIGN CREDITS Alyssa Zukas and Josh Korwin PRINT CREDITS Alyssa Zukas and Josh Korwin at Classic Litho Printers TYPE CREDITS Compacta Akzidenz Grotesk

QUANTITY PRODUCED 200 PRODUCTION COST $550 PRODUCTION TIME 3 days DIMENSIONS: WIDTH × HEIGHT × DEPTH 6 in × 6 in PRINT METHOD Invitations and reply card: Digital RSVP and other materials: Linocut block printing PAPER STOCK Invitation: Topkote dull, 95 lb cover RSVP: Finch opaque, 100 lb cover NUMBER OF COLORS CMYK + spot block printing inks

Back in November Alyssa and Josh sent out their wedding save the date, which we covered in FPO. While they were still unsure of the full wedding concept, music seemed to be an important and viable direction.

When we came up with the idea of the "gig poster"-as-save-the-date, we'd tossed around the idea of making the entire invitation set feel like music ephemera; LPs, fan club documents, badges, etc. The idea of a gatefold LP album cover felt like a natural choice for the invitation. But the size would be an issue, as we weren't planning on mailing 12 × 12-inch envelopes. So we went with a half scale; 6-inch-square, folded, instead of 12-inch.

The design of the front cover came first. We were inspired by albums designed mostly in the 1950s through early '60s, especially "floating head" style covers. I pored obsessively over the typography for weeks, but in a single marathon post-midnight photography session, we finally had the perfect cover portrait. Most of my experience is in panoramic photography and object photography, so I was initially intimidated by the notion of trying to pull off convincing mid-century portrait photography. We pretty much made it up as we went along. Working with a black sweatshirt as our backdrop, we used a small clamp light as our key light on the left, and, next to her face, Alyssa held up an adorable battery operated blue LED nightlight that we got at IKEA. I would set the timed shutter release, and then run back behind Alyssa, and crouch to get my head in the right position. It took a few tries to get the positioning right, but with the proper underexposure, we were able to achieve the half-lit Robert Freeman cover portrait look with plenty of negative space for copy. But by themselves, our floating heads weren't enough to fill the cover with color. So I took another shot of our lighting setup--sans Alyssa and me--deliberately out of focus. That gave us a great colorful bokeh effect that we would overlay on top of our portraits to produce the final effect. To simulate the "big foreground portrait, small background portrait" effect, we photographed a vintage caketopper in similar lighting conditions, and overlayed that image into some of the negative space in Photoshop. Voilà.

I believe that any couple who can have this much fun with their wedding invitation (and wedding planning) is in it for the long haul. If you want to read more about the design and process, as well as the other pieces please do so in theirblog.

Beautiful pieces individually, but as a set there's a bit of a disconnect. They don't seem to work together.

Thanks, Negative Nelly. IMO, fantastic concept. LOVE the distressed look. Been seeking some texture or photoshop brushes to replicate the effect.

Daaaaaamn those are dope. Well done.

thats fun. well thought out and very playful. could the "set" hold up as a corporate identity? no. but this is a wedding... insert subjectivity and style. nice job, i love it!

Yeah, I agree...the broader concept suits a wedding invitation just fine. There doesn;t have to be such a strict system at play, just the idea that it is music ephemera. The style of the invite its self is beyond perfect - a condensed black helvetica face, some franklin gothic and a bit of italic bodoni (I'm guessing) and you've nailed it. I love the coaster, too!

The RSVP card is looking the best to me.

I've gotta agree with Craig: individually, each piece has merit, but there's a lack of continuity when brought together. Great design on each piece, I just wish they worked better as a whole.

These are amazing! So unique and artfully done. I agree about the disconnect between the pieces, but each individual pieces is so great. Love the distressed look. Derek, let us know if you find a good photoshop trick to achieve it.

I love these pieces! So unique and creative .. I'm sure many wedding couples would love this concept!

Hey everybody! Thanks for all the kind words... we're really proud of our invitations. I just wanted to respond to the whole consistency debate: we were actually approaching these as being intentionally eclectic. Our goal was to have our invitations look like bits out of someone's ephemera collection: an LP sleeve, a pin/button, etc. Things that might have been found near each other in a closet, but weren't necessarily made by the same people or at the same time. We both collect a lot of odds and ends, and I'm especially fond of older printed matter. So rather than making this a design exercise focused on holistic brand consistency (the kind of design work I do professionally), this was a bit of a vacation. We were definitely more concerned with making each individual piece have a little life of its own. Come to think of it, almost every aspect of our wedding was like that, from the music playlist to the decorations and even our clothes. Nothing really matched at all, but that was the fun of it! I've posted some bits and pieces--including some photos, a panorama, and our set list--on our wedding site at http://www.marriedatthemuseum.com.

Josh...that makes sense. Wasn't trying to be "negative nelly" as Derek declared me, just making an observation.

Oh my gosh, those are SO cool! I totally want to attend that wedding! :)

O. M. G. I am so jealous of these!!! we just had our wedding 2 months ago and I wish I had the opportunity to see these or something like them before then, because I would have shamelessly copied :) Great work, super cool, LOVE the creative use of the play list as the breakdown of events. wow wow wow.