DESCRIPTION Jenna and Simon Wedding Invitation CLIENT Jenna and Simon DATE July 2010 DESIGN CREDITS The Hungry Workshop: Jenna and Simon PRINT CREDITS The Hungry Workshop: Jenna and Simon TYPE CREDITS Archer Gill Sans

QUANTITY PRODUCED 120 PRODUCTION COST $315 PRODUCTION TIME 2 weeks DIMENSIONS: WIDTH × HEIGHT × DEPTH Folded: 148.5 mm × 105 mm (5.75 in × 4.13 in) PRINT METHOD Letterpress (Heidelberg Windmill Platen Press) PAPER STOCK Stephen Smart White 330gsm NUMBER OF COLORS 2 spot inks, of found vintage ink OTHER Scoring

Jenna and Simon were getting married. Twice. In two continents. Two dates. Two of everything when it comes to wedding planning… except for their wedding invitation which they designed, printed and shipped to every guest no matter which event they would attend.

A hand crafted and letterpress printed wedding invitation for an American Bride and her Australian groom. We wanted to give equal emphasis to both the Australian and American receptions and invite everyone from both countries to the wedding ceremony. A wren (the American bride’s middle name) and a wombat (the quintessential Australian counterpoint) are separate on the sleeve with the ceremony information. Depending on where you are from, sliding out the card reveals the relevant reception information, and both instances unite the wren and wombat.

After going through all the variations making our engagement invitations and thank you cards (rubber stamps, metal type, wood type, etc) we tried our hand at modern letterpress for the big day. The concept began as a sketch and was perfected on the computer, then converted to plastic photopolymer plates and mounted onto a metal base in preparation for printing.

A Heidelberg Windmill Platen Press, circa 1960s, was used to print the two colour invitation in vintage inks. The outer sleeve and the insert were printed separately, totaling five passes through the press (including an additional pass for scoring). The Heidelberg is a wild machine won’t stop for anybody and almost bit Simon a few times (we have video to prove it). All in all printing took four very long days with lots of trial and lots of error and we wouldn’t have been able to get through without the help of our old mate, and printing veteran, Bob. Once we were happy with the printing, we hand assembled each invite, cropping, folding, hole punching and gluing the sleeves and inserting the inserts. (And we won’t go into the ordeal of having two strong-willed designers agree on the design, illustration, colours and typeface.)

The whole process taught us quite a bit about letterpress and each other, and has rekindled our love of print. Expect much more letterpress from us in the future!