stephen & meredith

These are gatefold invitations I designed for a bridal shower. My client, the groom's mother, wanted to include two adorable childhood photos of her son and soon-to-be daughter in law and created rhyming text to link the images with the invite. Since the shower is to be held at the beginning of spring, I decided to adorn the card with flowering trees and 'love-birds' perched within the branches. I housed the photos within chinoiserie-inspired pagoda 'bird cages' and used vibrant yet sophisticated spring colors. The centers of the flowers on the exterior of the card have a touch of hand-applied glitter for an extra sparkly touch. The invitations were printed on linen-finish paper to complete the chinoiserie look and feel.

Design-o-rama

A friend reached out to me to create invitations for her daughter's fourth birthday. Her daughter's favorite books are the 'Llama Llama...' series by Anna Dewdney (available here) and so together, they decided upon a llama theme. Children as well as adults are invited to the party; there will be a real live llama along with other animals from a mobile petting zoo, plenty of South American foods like empanadas and specialty cocktails! Their home will be decked out in papel picado banners which will add a festive Latin flair.
When designing this invitation, it was important for me to consider the perspective of my friend's daughter, a four year old adorable girl who, like many other four year old gals - loves deep pink and purple! She became part of the design process, going over the designs I submitted and selecting her favorites.
This brings me to the most important part of creating anything that I can be proud of — my process. I always begin by listening to my client and what their needs, wants, likes and dislikes are. Meeting in person is an advantage because I can often tell what styles, colors and ideas might appeal to them based on how they present themselves. Then I begin creating; usually a series of three to five differing design directions so that I can help the client really hone in on what they like. After this comes the selection of one design, and its refinement to a final version. Below are all of the initial designs I presented as well as the final, printed version.

this version was my favorite

the selected design before refining

the final printed version. the back was so much fun!