Last year I hosted a clothing sale in my apartment. It was a pretty simple affair that turned out to be super successful, with twenty-five women from my neighborhood selling their clothes and at least another fifty who walked through.

This year, one of my neighbors wanted to host another one and asked if I’d design her invite. I knew it didn’t have to correlate with last year’s design, but I wanted it to, at least loosely. Since the event lent itself to continuity as well as community, I thought, why not?

Remember this engagement announcement and this save-the-date card? Well, the project was far from over; we were just getting started.

My clients had some time to reflect on those designs and decided they had a particular fondness for the two cypress trees in the save-the-date card. They wanted the perennial coupling to be their wedding trademark. They also wanted to continue on the theme of Haifa’s Baha’i gardens in illustrated form, but incorporating the garden’s black iron gates and terracotta stone path were important this time.

Also, they really liked the idea of a gate-fold—when two parallel folds divide a sheet into three panels, and the two outside panels fold into the center. We could tape the panels together and then use the backside for addressing, which would eliminate the need for envelopes and give us some flexibility with size.

Since they weren’t sure how they were going to print the invitations, we decided to keep the design at least a quarter-of-an-inch away from the edge of the page. This would allow them to print at home if they wanted to.

Here’s the invitation, starting with the address side, flipping it over to the closed gate-fold, and then the final, open version:

We did a simple rearranging of the illustrated elements for their wedding program:

And their thank-you card:

And lastly, their seating cards:

Though illustrating the garden image took a lot of time, that’s precisely why working on this was so rewarding. When I think back to past projects, this one stands out as one of my most memorable.

I found a vintage paper cut-out online that makes me want to create my own. Unfortunately it could be ages before that miraculous day comes, so in the meantime, I used it as an overlay in this girly, high-tea invitation.

I love that this puts me in the mood for a party!

My clients were so happy with their engagement announcement that they came back to me for their “save the date” card. They wanted something elaborately illustrated, almost storybook-ish, and reminiscent of the unique location where their wedding would be held—Haifa, Israel.

So I came up with an interpretation of the famous Baha’i gardens in Haifa—tall cypress trees, trimmed hedges, red geraniums, and ornate lampposts—and it was a hit.

Not even two minutes after I got their approval, my husband looks over my shoulder and says, “What time of the day are they getting married? Because if it’s an evening wedding, maybe you should incorporate that.” Crap. That’s a good idea.

So I quickly called the couple and asked if they wanted to see a second version, and they did. They said they’d be getting married at 6:30 pm. Sunset.

So I was almost finished with that version, and then—I kid you not—my husband says, “Don’t kill me for saying this, but maybe you should consider illustrating the view from their wedding venue. I mean, wouldn’t that be nice? It’s like giving guests a preview of what they’ll actually be looking at on the night of the wedding.”

Crap.

I called the couple again and asked what they thought. They were open to it. Their wedding venue would overlook all of Haifa Bay, with the glittering lights of the city and the mountains of Northern Israel in the distance. I waved an angry fist at my husband for making me do so much extra work. Of course, if I didn’t think it was worth it, I wouldn’t have done it.

And it was definitely worth it.

Additional notes on technique:

The image was illustrated in Photoshop, using the brush tool. I paint in Photoshop just as you would paint on a canvas—constantly painting over the image underneath, layering color upon color until it feels right.

Once I was done with the painting, I overlaid the vintage floral pattern from their engagement announcement. It’s subtle, but it adds a nice texture. Also, since the save-the-date was such a departure from their engagement announcement, I wanted to find some way to connect the two designs.

The final design uses a couple of Photoshop filters—“paint daubs” and “rough pastels,” if I remember correctly.

One of my main sources of work is e-mail announcements. I often (and disappointingly) have to reject larger, ongoing, or long-term projects, because with a toddler and a newborn, my time is unpredictable, so it’s necessary to keep my commitments down. E-mail announcements, on the other hand, are quick and easy—I can actually accomplish one or two in a naptime (and even get in an episode of Glee. I’ve just started Season 2).

Plus, in my ongoing effort to beautify the world (hey, I can hear you stifle a laugh), I like knowing that one more e-mail announcement I design means one less message in my inbox using smiley faces, Comic Sans, and blinking text.

The image I used in this invitation came from here.

Creative couple Monica and Nick* knew exactly what their wedding invitation should look like. Their e-mail to me was precise, including images to use as well as how to lay it out.

They specifically requested these black silhouetted birds, patterned damask, and grungy typewriter font:

They also requested a color scheme—red, black, and white—and a vertical, fold-over flap in front.

Initially, this made me nervous. How was I going to take these almost-Halloweeny elements and make them elegant? Furthermore, how was I going to make them relevant?

I started out with these six drafts. Some excluded damask from the front cover, while others excluded the birds. In some drafts I changed the flock of birds to a couple of birds, hoping to convince them that the “lovebird” theme made a lot more sense. That’s when it hit me: Monica and Nick could be the couple who found each other among the flock of birds. The flock of birds could, in fact, be relevant! And not just relevant, but unexpected too! The bottom left draft came out of that epiphany:

They really liked the direction I was going and asked me to continue on. The only new request they had was to scrap the red, black, and white color scheme and try Tiffany blue instead. I came up with this draft, using a tone-on-tone blue which softened the pointy edges of the damask and, really, softened the whole design. This shows the front cover with the flap closed, and then opened:

After getting a thumbs-up, I continued work on the inside:

They loved it but wanted to see a couple more color ideas. And since I was still feeling apprehensive about the grungy typewriter font, I replaced that, too:

We were almost done, since at this point we were able to take elements from old drafts and put them together to complete the design. They loved the Tiffany blue and still wanted the grungy typewriter font, but now they were interested in having two red birds on the inside.

I was also able to convince them to change the inside quote to say something about birds, which made the whole concept even more relevant.

Here’s the final design (drumroll, please!):

*Names will always be changed.

It’s embarrassing to admit that I have resorted to using free and available art online. Don’t sue me! I’ll explain.

When someone comes to me for a pro-bono project with a very quick turnaround—like, “Hey, can you get it to me in a couple of hours?”— I only think about it for a couple of minutes before I start scouring for zero-cost, royalty-free stock images.

In this case, I must have done a search for something like youth silhouettes and retro background. Then I did my best to cut and crop the images so they didn’t scream, “Stock image!” or, more importantly, “Cheater!”

When you’re designing a simple invitation, whether it’s for a birthday party, barbecue, or game night, think about the information you need to convey as a hierarchy. What’s the most important thing your friends need to know? What’s secondary? What’s least important? More often than not, the “what” and the “when” are most important, so treat that information as such.

You’ll see that, what often happens when you build your invitation hierarchically, not only do your friends find it easier to read the information, but the visual rhythm of text adds to the overall appeal of your design.

With all the separate pieces in this project—a paper invitation, e-mail invitation, flyer, and cookie tags—a non-designer might think it took a lot of time and effort to put it all together. In reality, it was quite simple.

Think about it: I’ve repeated the same illustrations, used only one font, and barely varied placement or scale. It’s such a simple formula that it almost makes me laugh.

The most time-consuming part of this project was probably coming up with a concept (and really, how hard is it to think of hot air balloons for a big, family-friendly celebration?) and then illustrating it. Yet the illustrations are simple, too—almost like paper cutouts. Look closely and note that to create something like this, you don’t need to be a fantastic illustrator, and you don’t need to resort to clip art, either.

Keep in mind that if you’re designing a piece for someone to print at home, chances are that they won’t be able to print color all the way to the edge of the page. So, instead of making a white border look like an accident, make it look deliberate—here, I’ve added a ¼-inch border around the pieces that will be printed at home.

When Heather and Michael* asked me to design their wedding invitation, they had already done their research and had several examples of invitations they liked. I took the delicate floral designs that inspired them, mussed them up and brightened the pinks—giving their invitations more personality and punch while still remaining dignified.

A few weeks later, they asked me to design a complementary invitation that would only be sent to their closest friends for a post-wedding housewarming party. I thought it would be interestingly unexpected to take the same single, blossoming tree from their invitation and make it two.

*Names will always be changed.