Wedding Card Design

Jessie jots...

After hours reading about Malaysian political issues on www.TheStar.com.my, it was hard to not feel annoyed, frustrated and insecure about the nation's future. And the number one reason I don't really talk about Malaysian politic is the reason I don't quite understand what is going on, not all, some. Having live in the US for 7 years, I have completely lost track of the on-going political issues. Even when friends and family voice out their frustration with the current state of my home country, I lend them my ears but I don't feel the tension as much. I don't live in the environment, although I understand the immature decisions politician made which can make you go "What the..??", I understand them but not determine to take actions on it. Honestly, I can only imagine the whole fiasco when Mom tells me how it was once quite chaotic in Permatang Pauh and I bet it is not even half of what Penangites had to go through.

Allow me then, to refocus my energy and put it on something more feasible - a wedding invitation card for a dear friend named Charlotte. Makes me happier knowing I can get artsy again. So let's not think of ugly politic problem or at least for the time being.

Studying what the bride-to-be likes, I understood that she wanted a very simple invitation card with pale purple and light pale yellow as her theme colors. She sent me a few pictures of the place where the wedding will be held and her own engagement ring, which look really lovely. My design style is very modern classic - I like using vintage patterns but add modernistic clean lines and bright bold colors on them. So when Charlotte requested a more genuine vintage style, with very traditional fonts and colors, I felt quite challenged.

I gathered information on the surroundings she will be in, the dress, the ring and conclude that, a lot of the intuitive common theme in the pictures are cursive soft wordings and timeless elegance.

My inspirations:

My first design was this 'Petals Falling' card. I made the complete set of invitation to give an impression on how they will appear together.

Then Charlotte came back to me requesting she wanted a more mustardy yellow. My idea of a mustardy yellow is seen in the next design. It was really hard to communicate ideas through emails, so a lot of times I'm intuitively making decisions guessing what might be the right one. This time, I chose a bolder purple to match with the mustardy yellow, which turned out really nice (in my eyes) but it wasn't Charlotte's choice. She still has much interest with the first style.

Diverting from what I had already design, I gave her another look to give her an idea there's more you can do with purple and yellow. This time I play around with the idea of the flower 'Iris', which naturally has the color purple and yellow in it. Again using the bold purple and yellow, not realizing it wasn't her choice of color.

From the card above, I learned that I was going towards the wrong direction. The very detailed flower made it looked too complicated. It must have felt too strong for her and I totally agree with Charlotte, I was designing for a more futuristic look. Digging back to the inspiring pictures I had, I knew more designs are due.

Narrowing down the list, the pale purple and really pale light yellow has got to stay. I gave her a few options on fonts, and a cream color background (my idea) to give her more choices to choose from. I've sent her the file and hope that at least one of these choices will entice her with my only goal, to give her, the perfect wedding invitation card.

Style #1: A Pair of Birds

Style #2: Paisley Card with a Yellow ribbon.

Style #3: Small Monogram on Cream-colored paper

Style #4: Big Monogram on Yellow paper.

We'll see what she pick then!