The devil is in the design
Whilst, here at Cutture, we are quite renowned for creating rather elaborate and intricate invitations, what people often don’t see are our far more simple, printed only invitations which are equally as luxurious and stylish. The trick with keeping things simple, like in everything, is to do it well.
Often we work with clients who have different budgets for different areas of their event planning and indeed their stationery, some prefer to spend more on the event stationery itself, others want all out on the invitation. If the budget is not there for invitations, whilst we encourage these aren’t overlooked as they play the rather vital role of getting people to your event (!), we do appreciate that restrictions have to be made at times, therefore our approach is to work to create something that is still impressive and most of all feels good, feels good to touch but also to receive.
There are many ways to create simple but striking invitations, we love the challenge of trying to create something that is WOW but within a printed only realm. Whilst these aren’t invitations that are going to cost £1 a pop, they are considerably less than our most elaborate work and still so effective, so here’s our tips on how to create something slick and beautiful but in budget.
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– Paper weight ; A good paper weight is first up, weights of paper make all the difference, if their is room to add an embossed texture within the budget then that can be beautiful too, but if not, the thicker the better for single card invitations.
– Print; specialised print such as foiling and screen printing will always be more, however you can achieve a beautiful digitally printed invitation too, that all comes down to design and illustration, but this also requires investment in time. So way up what is important to you, consider print, consider investing in illustration, or typography, then tell your designer which part of those elements you want to focus on, if you want everything, it will cost more!
– Colour; colour ways are the easiest way to transform an invitation into a luxe invitation, if you can’t afford to print metallics onto card, then be clever with single colour print such as leaving the white paper to come through a flood print of colour, that’s a simple but effective way to achieve the white on grey look for instance.
– Engraving acrylic; this is a prime example of being really clever with design, take the record design above, by laser engraving the metallic acrylic (engraving the surface layer away) you create a wonderful replica of the vinyl record we all remember and love but with a modern twist, by using the materiality with our tooling we created a really unique, cost effective finish.
– Finishes; Have a really simple invitation but add finishing touches such as envelope seals, or ribbon with tags to finish a printed invitation off, that doesn’t have to cost the earth but will add that extra bespoke touch to it.
– Envelopes; you can still get lovely, slightly thicker envelopes, to go with a printed only invitation, try to remember these within your budget as they do alter costs, but equally if you can invest in the thicker envelope then that really transforms the feel of a printed only invitation as being special, why not get your calligraphy hat on too and personalise all the names and addresses with lovely inks! You can also run plain envelopes though the digital printer which keeps things smart and makes it easier for you.
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Ultimately there are a thousand ways to transform a simple invitation, but remember if you are tight for budget, then every element you add, down to illustrations and rivets for ribbon, will add a cost.
Otherwise it’s just about leaving it up to us to be clever with design, design done well can be super effective, design done well with an immaculate finish on a simple invitation, even better.
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