One of the more difficult things to undertake in letterpress printing is the successful execution of a project that includes two or more transparent colors which are to be overprinted.

The process involves a fair amount of foresight on the part of the graphic designer and, occasionally, the adjustment of the ink mixture to allow the color to be both opaque in its pure coverage and appropriately transparent where it shares space with other inks.

This wedding invitation design manages to group colors well and to, through a scattered density of design, remain visually calm in spite of its thick patterning.

Can you hear the leaves rustle?

Ah Spring, or nearly so, and a young man’s fancy turns to, well, love.

Here is the latest letterpress invitation to be printed at the Nomadic Press. Produced for Wali and Kalisha, and designed by the groom himself, this oversized tri-fold piece is a 2 over 0 example of how to bring an invitation up to the size of the affection.

In designing and overseeing the production of the invitations to his own wedding, Wali finds that he has become a member of an elite group of men. In 20-some-odd-years of printing invitations at the Nomadic Press Wali is one of only 6 or so men who have been the go-to person, from the beginning of an wedding invitation project right on through to its end.

And this, I believe, bodes well for their marriage.

When I was helping to plan my own wedding (nearly 20 years ago now) I had the opportunity to create the greatest wedding invitation in the history of weddings. I was a budding letterpress printer and had just started my printing company, The Nomadic Press, and my best friend (and bride-to-be) was a graphic designer. 

She was sewing her own dress and I was printing the invitations, so we had a bit of money that we could spend on materials. With all the confidence of youth, we believed that we had lots of skill and talent to apply to the design and production of our invitations. For weeks (and on into months) we worked on design after design and made mock-ups until our tables were buried under the empty shells of a myriad of glue-sticks.

And still the first guest had not been invited to the big event.

Finally, a friend of ours sent us an invitation to our own wedding with a note that gently reminded us that if we did not get some kind of invitation out soon, then it was unlikely that people would be able to fit our wedding into their schedules.

We settled for a nice invitation, not the best in the history of marriage, but good enough. Like the example that accompanies this post (which I printed for Scott and Deborah), not the best ever, but quite nice all the same.

Oh, the woman I married is still doing graphic design, I am still a letterpress printer, and we are still happily hitched to each other. Ahhh, letterpress.