Wedding invitation – Barbara & Aaron

Much to my pleasure, my brother and sister-in-law gave me carte blanche when designing the invitation suite for their Cape Cod wedding. They didn’t have any specifications other than the colour palette and that they didn’t want a typical nautical “Cape” style. I knew I wanted to create a design that was very much focused on illustration, so came up with this toile pattern that included a gristmill and a windmill (the venue had a water wheel outside), with some fall foliage thrown in because it was a fall wedding and fully illustrated type. Everything in this suite was hand drawn, including every letter. All pieces were then letterpress printed (also by me) except for the envelope, which was digitally-printed. 

I’m so happy with how this invitation turned out. It’s great when clients let you do your thing and have fun with a job. Fun wedding too!

Specs: Design Papillon Press (Chantal Bennett) | Paper Crane Lettra, 600 & 300 gsm, flo white | Size 5×7″ double-sided, 3.5×5″ reply card | Ink Colour Cobalt Blue & Silver | Extras custom digitally-printed envelope

Printed invitation – Melissa & Richard

Here is an elegant wedding invitation we printed for Melissa and Richard. The calligraphy was created by Allison at Allison R. Banks Designs. If you love the look of calligraphy, a great idea is to hire a calligrapher to design your invitation suite and then convert it to a digital format so it can be printed in whatever method you want. In this case, Melissa wanted calligraphy AND letterpress printing, so we worked with Allison to convert the calligraphy artwork to a letterpress-ready format. The result is the best of  both worlds!

Specs:  Paper Crane Lettra, 300 gsm, pearl white | Size Oversize announcement and envelope (6×9″) and 4 bar reply card & envelope | Calligraphy Allison R. Banks Design | Ink Colour Gunmetal Grey

Darryl & Alexis – custom wedding invitation

This could be our favourite wedding invitation YET. We designed a custom wedding invitation for Darryl and Alexis for their destination wedding in Mexico. The area where they are having the wedding is known for its whale migration, so they wanted to include an illustration of a whale on the invitation. We love clients who let us do our thing and these guys did just that. The result is a super fun, original invitation. 

Printed on Crane Lettra, pearl white 300 gsm in Red and Cerulean Blue. 

Custom wedding invitation – Lara & William

In late 2013 we were approached to design a simple and elegant, yet very elaborate invitation suite. This one had all the pieces: the typical 4 piece suite, pocketfold, vellum, lined envelopes, plus illustrated map, favour tag, belly band, valet card, and thank you card…most of them with painted edges. 

Then announcement card was printed in black with a blind deboss starfish header and Relais & Châteaux logo, on pearl white double-thick 600 gsm Lettra with robin’s blue painted edges. We illustrated the map and printed it in black on pearl white double-thick 600 gsm Lettra, also with painted edges. The reply card was printed in black and a blind deboss on pearl white 300 gsm Lettra. The favour tag was also black and blind deboss, trimmed in a square shape with painted edges and striped b&w baker’s twine. The thank you card was A2 size with a 2 colours printed on the front and a one-colour greeting inside, also with painted edges (a first for us for a thank you, but why not?) All envelopes were lined with robin’s blue printed liners. The final package was assembled in a pocketfold, the announcement held in place with an open vellum pocket. The pocketfold was then sealed with a band featuring a blind deboss of the recurring starfish illustration.

And there it is, our most elaborate invitation suite yet!

McCarthy birth announcement

We were delighted when Doug and Dayna asked us to design the birth announcement for their second child (see the first one here) They wanted to keep the same format and style, but this time with a woodland theme.

Printed on 300 gsm Crane Lettra, pearl white, 4.5×6.25″

Custom invitation design – Claire & Robert

We’re so thrilled to have the chance to be working with more local clients lately. This custom invitation comes courtesy of a lovely couple living in North Bay, Claire and Robert. They came to visit us with the idea of having the chapel where they were going to be wed featured on the invitation. They also loved our Hivernale invitation and so wanted some of the elements of that invitation incorporated into theirs.

Chantal gave three sketches (below) each of which featured a different aspect of the chapel.

Initial sketches for Claire and Rob's invitation

Claire and Robert chose the 3rd sketch, which features an illustration of the chapel and a lovely decorative border, printed in light grey ink with the text in fuschia. The result is a lovely, soft invitation with matching envelope. Thanks for being such fanstastic clients, Claire and Rob!

Printed on Crane Lettra, 300 gsm, pearl white in light grey and fuschia. 6.5×6.5″.

Final letterpress invitation for Claire & Robert

 

 

 

 

Custom wedding invitation – David & Zuimei

This has to be one of our favourite custom invitations to date. Dave contacted us to produce a full suite based on specific types of birds, the chickadee and the western tanager. Put a bird on it? Absolutely! We love drawing birds.

We also had the chance to design a more fully illustrated piece to be used as an insert for the Starbucks mug that would be handed out as a guest favour.

Printed on Crane Lettra, 300 gsm, pearl white in Cobalt Blue and Yellow Ochre.

Vintage stamps courtesy of sendmoremail.blogspot.com

Cuts & Caps – Presbyterian Church

We dusted off this old engraving for a photo shoot in the sun and now it’s snowing again! This church (we have about 4 or 5 churches), according to some scribbles on the back of the block, is a Presbyterian church. It looks pretty medieval to me, and awesome.

You might remember us mentioning on previous blog posts about a giveaway coming up. Well, we’re having one tomorrow, so check back again in a day to find out what it’s for (something useful, letterpress printed and custom to you)and how you can win (easily). You can also follow us on Twitter (@papillonpress) and Facebook for updates and more letterpress giveaway information.

 

 

 

 

 

Calling Card – Mark

It’s fun designing letterpress items as gifts for family members, because since it is a gift we get full artistic license to do whatever we want 😉

This is a fun calling card designed as a gift for Chantal’s father. We included a spirograph and a bunch of icons that represent his interests (including basketball, golf, tv, guitar, electronics and books). A calling card is a great way of handing out your information when meeting new people, so you don’t have to scribble out your phone number and address on a napkin or a post-it note!

Printed on 600 gsm Crane Lettra, pearl white in navy and silver inks.

Custom invitation – Sarah & Charles

We’re happy to have our first bilingual (français, english) invitation under our belt! This is a custom invitation we designed for Sarah and Charles, a fun bilingual couple. The one-colour modern design is complemented by a fun envelope liner with a custom monogram.

Printed on 300 gsm Lettra in ecru, 6.5×6.5″. Liner printed digitally.

Merci Sarah et Charles!