Calligraphy – Bluebird Studios

I first discovered Bluebird Studios a few weeks ago via Snippet & Ink, but only recently got around to exploring their work in greater detail. 

Rebecca Trawick is the talented calligrapher behind Bluebird Studios and has done some truly beautiful work.  Rebecca has worked with invtation and letterpress studios including Good on Paper and Paper Monkey Press.  These are a few of my favorite examples, but you can also find more of her calligraphy here.

I love that letterpress studios are starting to use more calligraphy and handwriting.  I love fancy scripts and typefonts as much as anyone else, but there's truly something special about letterpressed calligraphy.

{I wish I had handwriting this lovely…}

Rebecca is also an illustrator, collagist and painter who uses found materials, paper ephemera and other vintage items to create one-of-a-kind works of art and illustrations.  You can see more of her lovely artwork here.

Wedding Programs – Darling Dexter

I love, love the design that Whitney from Darling Dexter came up with for her wedding ceremony programs. You can just tell that Whitney thought about every detail – from the overlay of patterned paper as a cover to the baker's twine used to bind the pages together:

Whitney also incorporated the nest and other graphics from her invitations into the programs

I love the idea of incorporating quotes into wedding programs. In my own wedding, my husband and I recited poems in lieu of ring vows, and we included both those poems and our marriage vows in our programs.

{all photos by Whitney from Darling Dexter}

Julia Rothman’s Modern Illustrated Letterpress Wedding Invitations

When I saw the photos from Julia Rothman’s wedding on brooklyn bride last week, I knew I had to feature Julia’s amazing wedding invitations:

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Then I also remembered that I had seen an initial mock-up of these invitations a few months back on kenziekate’s guest blog on design sponge:

The invitations turned out to be absolutely lovely in all of their letterpress goodness – and it’s so wonderful to see these invitations go from illustration to reality!  I asked Julia for some background on the inspiration behind her invitation design.  Julia said that she actually had a hard time deciding what to do for her invitations since there were so many people to please, which I know is a feeling that many other brides can relate to!  Since Julia is an illustrator, it made the most sense for her to illustrate her own invitations – she decided to use line drawings to complement the feel and look of the letterpress printing process.

Julia-Rothman-Illustrated-Letterpress-Wedding-Invitations

From Julia: I knew I wanted to fill the space as much as possible with line drawings since letterpress looks so nice this way.  I’ve had some experience with it since working with Hello! Lucky on a line of cards.  I had my colors picked out already so that part was easy.  After trying a bunch of different typefaces I decided my own handwriting was so much more “me” and the rest just sort of happened.

Julia-Rothman-Illustrated-Letterpress-Wedding-Invitations

Initially I was disappointed with the design.  Matt liked it and I didn’t have much time so I decided to go with it. Once I added the rsvp card and the map I liked the invitation card much more.  Then after it was printed – by my friend Chris Kyung at Soho Letterpress as a gift – I loved how they came out.  I think most things look nice in letterpress no matter what and he did an absolutely perfect job.

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Hand-Lettered-Wedding-Invitation-Envelopes

After seeing these invitations as a final product (including all of those hand-addressed envelopes!), I really can’t imagine anything else – the design seems so perfectly suited for Julia and her wedding.  Aren’t they just lovely?

Thanks so much, Julia, for sharing your beautiful invitations!

Check out the Designer Rolodex for more tal­ented wed­ding invi­ta­tion design­ers and the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

{image credits: top photo by jennifer causey, illustration by julia via design*sponge, all other photos by julia rothman}