Oh So Beautiful Paper

These wedding invitations from printmaker and designer Jason Gomez at Turnstyle Studio in Seattle combine two of my favorite mediums – screen printing and letterpress!  Jason set out with the single goal of creating an invitation suite that reflected the fun, outgoing nature of his bride and groom clients, with a beautiful result.  The invitation text  was letterpress printed in a soft gray by Swash Press, while Jason screen printed bright purple and orange accents:

From Jason: When designing this invitation there were a few key words I always kept in mind from the bride and groom: casual, fun, simple, and modern. Drawing my inspiration from old circus posters that used expressive typography to convey a sense of fun and excitement, I set out to convey that same sense of fun with this invitation.

I selected various typefaces and played around with scale.  Along with the type I also incorporated two sparrows which symbolized the love, dedication, and trust they had for each other.  The sparrows were no coincidence since the groom had a sparrow tattoo already and was going to be adding a second one to represent their love for one another.

It was the perfect story for them since sparrows mate for life and will always return home no matter how far they travel.  Accompanying the sparrows were bursts of color that represented fireworks since the wedding was set for July.

For the invitation production process, I wanted the invitation to have a very tactile and personal quality, but also to keep it as budget friendly as possible.  So I decided to silkscreen the two colors on my own and then have the invitation text letterpress printed by Swash Press as the final step.

To add some uniqueness to the outside of the invitation envelopes we re-used the bursts from the invite and silkscreened those on the simple bright orange outer envelopes.

I love the way Jason incorporated various vintage-inspired typefaces while bringing in the silkscreened pops of color to keep things modern and fun.  Thanks Jason!

{image credits: jason gomez}

1. cecile/Detour2Mode says:

   07/14/2010 at 12:10 PM

   these are gorgeous!
2. Superkitina says:

   07/12/2010 at 7:20 PM

   Wow! I love the color combination.Love the idea. thanks for sharing
3. Ariel Nay Nebeker says:

   07/12/2010 at 12:57 PM

   Jason is an unbelievably gifted Designer. His own wedding invitations were out-of-this-world. I have the privilege of knowing both him and this bride. He completely captured her free-spirit. These are the kind of invitations you never throw away. It’s not too often can you truly say that.