You can always find great looks in the city and this urban inspired Alice customization is no exception. Accenting with deep blue inks and a heavy coverage of black really makes this invitation pop. Adding a sleek single letter monogram and some geranium edge painting really sets this one apart. Our strana font finishes this invite with a nice formal touch that makes this the perfect blend of class and style.

alice customization = inks: deep blue + black | fonts: strana + aiden stripe | paper: white | invite size: f-8 | liner: rustic crosshatch pattern in geranium | edge painting: geranium | original design by Tara Hogan | customized by in-house designer Kyle Laatsch |

(Photo Credits : Cheri Lehnow)
by Kyle Laatsch, In-House Designer

The perfect precursor to what’s sure to be a gorgeous vintage-chic outdoor wedding, this customization of our Victrola Letterpress design has got everybody here at the shop… spinning.  Pressed in Deep Blue and Pool on our 1-ply ivory paper,  the old school typography,  cool hues,  and ornate flourishes really lend this set some sick traditional Americana vibe.  Two color printing throughout the set (even on the envelopes) really helps to keep things cohesive and well balanced.

ink:  deep blue + pool | fonts:  victoria + manoir | paper:  ivory 1-ply | invite size:  F-8 | client coordinator:  chris gannon  | in-house designer:  kyle laatsch

by Chris Gannon, Client Coordinator.

Continuing our love affair with pretty shades of blue, these modern wedding invitations are a fresh take on our Avion letterpress invitations. They were printed in deep blue and pewter inks and designed for our popular square size. An accompanying website card details event information and fun letterpress escort cards complete the suite.

Over the next few weeks our esteemed lead client coordinator Tiffany is going to be sharing wedding inspiration from the movies. Today, an unexpected source of absolutely beautiful wedding colors – Jaws!

One of the very few movies I cannot pass by if it’s on television – I will drop everything and watch it in it’s entirety. This color palette is sophisticated and ocean-like, proving inspiration can come from unexpected places!

{Photo from The Independent.}

Today we’re wishing you a very happy new year with a little glamor inspired by our Claddagh letterpress wedding invitation in shades of deep blue, sea mist, sand, antique gold and taupe for a sophisticated and trés chic wedding soirée. We wish you a fabulous holiday weekend – see you in 2011! (Photo credits: wedding invitations + sequined dress + wedding gown + sparklers.)

Using pretty spring weddings and our Palais letterpress wedding invitations as inspiration, we love this sweet palette of wedding colors in sea mist, deep blue, dusty pink, light peach and celadon. (Photo credits: wedding bouquet + bridesmaid dresses.)

We printed these lovely Papillon letterpress wedding invitations for an upcoming October wedding. They were printed in deep blue and pumpkin inks with a coordinating persimmon envelope liner. A letterpress directions card provides guests with necessary travel information and a map of the local area. We love this great color combination, it’s a bit unexpected and yet perfect for fall.

Recently we’ve had the pleasure of printing a whole bunch of really great letterpress ceremony programs. In different shapes and sizes and featuring a whole array of different designs, each one is personalized with the colors, fonts and designs perfect for each individual couple and their event.

These double-sided programs are in our Suyra design, printed in deep blue and butter yellow inks. They were a full F8 size, the same as our larger-sized invitations, to allow the couple to really maximize the amount of information they could include. In this case, the back of the program featured details on the members of their wedding party.

Decidedly modern in our Flourish design printed in persimmon, these 1-color double-sided ceremony programs are a true reflection of the event this couple was planning. They are fun and whimsical while still perfectly appropriate for their traditional church ceremony.

Perfect for a more formal event, these letterpress programs in our Plume design feature deep blue and antique gold inks and the undeniable flair of hand calligraphy accents. Like the Flourish letterpress programs above, these were double-sided letterpress on our tea length size. We love the elegance a lovely letterpress ceremony program can add to a wedding and look forward to printing many many more.

Julie and Noam’s letterpress wedding invitations are a custom creation we were thrilled to letterpress, designed by the couple in collaboration with their good friend Katerina Barry of Your Day Designs. The invitation design is based on a postcard Noam sent Julie a few years ago when he was living in Berlin and she in New York and the complete set is incredibly thoughtful and personalized with details that are reflective of Julie and Noam’s history as a couple. The set includes several pieces including the gorgeous main invitation, a custom map depicting locations special to Julie and Noam, invitation cards to other weekend events, a wonderfully fun mad lib reply card that was a nod to Julie’s love for word games and a custom blind debossed envelope that we hand crafted to meet Noam’s vision. All of the pieces are printed in 1-color in deep blue ink and together are an absolute showstopper, featuring a range of finely printed details and large solids that together achieve a really unique and beautiful letterpress look.

Bride to-be Julie was wonderful and happily shared thoughts on their inspiration with us…

The inspirational postcard, which still hangs on our fridge, features the silhouettes (in black) of a bunch of Berlin monuments that were then reflected so that the row of monuments looked kind of like a sound wave. When we started talking about invitation design, we knew we wanted to do something that was striking and that was both really different and really beautiful. We went to Katerina with the idea of a reflected composite skyline made up of some of the most recognizable buildings from cities around the world that we had spent time in together: New York, Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Istanbul. Our friend Katerina took it from there — she created the skyline image, hunted for the perfect font, and brought it all together. She created the individual events cards using enlarged versions of the New York buildings in the skyline, in recognition of the fact that our wedding will take place in the city.

The hand-drawn map was created by calligrapher Nancy Howell. It features some of Julie and Noam’s favorite East Village and Lower East Side spots, including the place where they first met, Tompkins Square Park, the theater that hosted their first real date, Millennium Film Workshop, and the site of New York’s best smoked salmon, Russ & Daughters. The Angel Orensanz Foundation, where they will be married next month, is also included on the map.

Julie and Noam’s design was especially unique because it continued onto their inner envelopes, a design element that evolved from an idea Noam dreamed up and was ultimately engineered by Bella Figura co-founder, Harold. The invitation design was blind debossed on large sheets of paper and then die cut, with each envelope being carefully hand-assembled. Naturally, we had to ask Julie to share the inspiration behind their beautiful envelope design…

One thing Noam got really excited about was the idea of making the letterpress technology a part of the design itself. He really wanted to have not only a mirroring of the skyline image, but also a reproduction of the letterpress plate, so that there would be one part of the invitation that mimicked the plate used to print the skyline and invitation text. Katerina played around with doing all of that on the invitation itself, but it always seemed to be visually confusing or, if printed blind, to leave too much white space. So we took it off of the invitation card and moved it to the inner envelope, where the entire invitation is blind debossed in an exact mirror of the invitation itself both in left-right orientation and in terms of what is pressed down and what is raised…but printed without ink. It’s as if the press came through the card and pressed into the envelope. You all at Bella Figura ingeniously figured out a way to execute Noam’s vision of the inner envelopes, and they turned out better than we had even imagined.

Having had the opportunity to work with Julie and Noam on this brilliant invitation suite, we had to know a bit more about their upcoming wedding and the things they are most looking forward to…

We chose Bella Figura because of the company’s commitment to social justice and the environment, values we hope will permeate every aspect of our wedding, from the local and sustainable food to the egalitarian ceremony. And we are also looking forward to a really crazy hora.

Now that’s our kind of wedding! Julie and Noam, thank you both for letting us share your incredible invitations. Congratulations and best wishes from all of us at Bella Figura!