Letterpress Love

Happy New Year all!!! I hope your break was as relaxing as mine was. As I was getting ready to head back to work this morning, it totally hit me: I am getting married THIS YEAR. Not in the distant future, not in a year from now...in nine months. Holy Guacamole! So exciting! But it also means the pressure is on and I've got to get in gear. On that note, I have started designing our save the dates and invitations-by far one of my fave things about wedding planning is designing the invites!! We have decided to go with Letterpress- a. because its environmentally friendly (as is our venue-see previous post!) and b. because I am a graphic design snob who has always wanted to do a letterpress project, but has never gotten to! So, as I dive into designing, please enjoy some of my favorite letterpress wedding invites for inspiration:

1. Bella Figura: An eco-friendly, wind powered press out of New York. Gorgeous designs!

2. Hello Lucky! Founded in 2003 by talented sisters Eunice and Sabrina Moyle, Hello Lucky! is a specialty letterpress printer and design studio that creates gorgeous wedding invitations and other paper goods. No wonder I love them-one of their clients is Anthropologie! Check out some of their gorgeous work below:

Wedding-y Goodness

Where have I been, you ask? Planning a wedding! Whew, its lots of work...and so much fun! I wanted to share a little sneak peek of all the wonderfulness to come, so, for those of you who are coming to the wedding, act surprised! Our colors will be Robins Egg, Grass, Pumpkin, & Chocolate. We have chosen The Barr Mansion & Artisan Ballroom for the ceremony and reception. Its gorgeous, and happens to be a green facility.

Here are some awesome green facts about Barr Mansion:

1. The nations first and ONLY Certified Organic events facility
2. Food USDA Certified Organic by Oregon Tilth
3. Gardens are Certified Organic and Certified Wildlife Habitat
4. The Green Restaurant Association's Highest Scoring Restaurant
5. A Zero Waste facility diverting 97% of our waste stream
6. Linens organic cotton, hemp, linen or recycled fabric
7. All food waste goes to compost and back to the gardens
8. Local, local, local - from vegetables to curtain rods
9. 100% post-consumer paper from Austin's waste stream for office
10. Austin GreenChoice Renewable Energy Partner

And here is a sneak peek at some of the wedding pretties!

I can't wait!

Too Good Not to Share

This is for all my designer people. Clients From Hell. We all have them, and it is so fun to have hilarious horror stories round them all up in one place. I will be sure to refer back to this site when I am having a nightmare client day. Thank you to How About Orange for her fab post about this site. A few gems are below, and be sure to visit Clients From Hell to read more client ridiculousness.

Some of my faves (content from http://clientsfromhell.tumblr.com)

"A client once asked me to produce a banner for them and the dimension should have been 12 by 3 centimeters. She measured it on her screen using a ruler."

“I have a design already made, or at least I know exactly what I want so it should be easy for you if you’re a good designer. Also, I would built this site myself but I don’t have time. It is a very straight forward build that I could do myself so I expect to not have to pay for this.”

I was working on an identity for a client and we where discussing paper for their stationery. I had made recommendations and the client called to ask me to email him a sample of the paper so he can feel it. After 2 minutes of arguing that I cannot email a physical sample, the client said “Ok, fine. If you can’t email it, then at least fax it to me.”.

Engagement Photos

Being engaged is so much fun! We had a blast taking our Engagement Photos over Halloween weekend in Austin- the town where we met. These were taken by my beautiful and talented friend, Grace Pfeiffer, and I couldn't be more pleased. She is so talented! And, she is 7 1/2

months pregnant-she really is super woman!

We really just wanted to have a fun, relaxed day and include some of our favorite things: our westie, Calvin, cupcakes from "Hey Cupcake, " and being silly together. I would say mission accomplished. I feel so blessed to have Geoff in my life-and I can't wait till we get married!

PS: Visit Grace's Site here and hire her!

Daily Drop Cap

ike this big lovely "L"? Me too! I love type. Always have. Even when I was little I loved making my letters. Now I'm a designer and I get paid to play with type! Which is why I am so fascinated by Jessica Hische's Daily Drop Cap. Everyday, she posts a new, gorgeous initial cap for you to use on your blog. And they are stunning! Please enjoy a quote from Jessica's blog below and pics of a few of my faves. And don't forget to visit her site to enjoy all her typographic goodness.

"The Daily Drop Cap is an ongoing project by typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische. Each day (or at least each WORK day), a new hand-crafted decorative initial cap will be posted for your enjoyment and for the

beautification of blog posts everywhere. To use a Daily Drop Cap on your site or blog, follow the instructions in each post and read about the usage limitations. Enjoy!"