DESCRIPTION Jaime & Anthony Wedding Invitation CLIENT Jaime Stoltz & Anthony Eckman DATE June 2011 DESIGN CREDITS Stoltz Marketing Group Design: Kate Holgate PRINT CREDITS Paper Mill Designs Stationery & Letterpress Studio Studio on Fire TYPE CREDITS Swiss 721 Archer Lauren Script

QUANTITY PRODUCED 150 PRODUCTION COST $4,000 PRODUCTION TIME 2 weeks DIMENSIONS: WIDTH × HEIGHT × DEPTH 5 in × 7 in PRINT METHOD Letterpress PAPER STOCK Crane Lettra French Pop-Tone NUMBER OF COLORS 3 spot inks

Letterpress printing is amazing, there is no denying, but it is also tricky. Unless you have spec’d it a few times there are characteristics that need to be acknowledged and understood before the design phase gets started. That is not so say a happy accident is out of the question due to no knowing what you have ahead of you, but it helps to be prepared.

Jaime and Anthony were getting married outdoors in the beautiful historic Sun Valley, Idaho. Sun Valley is a laid-back resort town surrounded by gorgeous mountains with numerous aspen groves. Jaime was wide-open to ideas and only requested that I somehow tie in an Aspen theme—also, her colors were coral and khaki, and I introduced a teal color to the pallet.

The save-the-date cards have a tree ring timeline (blind letterpress) showing important dates in Jaime and Anthony’s relationship. For the invitations, I created a combination of textures including a pattern that repeats the aspen leaf symbol (blind letterpress) as well as a wood grain texture. I also used vintage-inspired typography. Stamped muslin bags replaced the traditional inner envelope. The ultimate goal was to create an invitation set that felt elegant and natural.

Since this was my first letterpress project, I learned a great deal along the way. My first round of designs would have resulted in too much ink coverage, which tends to warp the cotton paper. I also had some pre-press challenges preparing the file with the intricate patterns and type. In the end, I learned that sometimes less is more, especially when designing for letterpress.