WW: Branding

For Jason's birthday one year/his graduation from college, his sister Amanda bought him one of the greatest gifts ever. It was literally a brand. I kid you not. She bought Jason a branding iron with his initials on it so he could brand his meat.

Jason was thrilled. Who knew he could get so excited over branding?!

I should have known that he was interested in that sort of branding because it involved meat. The branding that I work on is more graphically based. But here and there Jason still surprises me with his interest in my design work.

The past few days I've been kicking around ideas for our wedding's identity. I do a lot of work with paper, so I want it to be a paper wedding. Paper flowers, paper centerpieces, paper decorations, paper anything and everything. The verdict is still out on the paper flowers. I bought a kit and we'll see how they come out. But if I stand against anything, I stand against shoddy craftsmanship, so if the flowers don't look right, we'll ditch them and go for something more ... alive.

My first task was to design us a monogram. I knew I wanted something that was simple, but would tie in the dots design I had thrown together as a doodle to decorate our invitations with.

I sent Jason a few versions and he totally chose the one I loved. Usually when I have my heart set on one thing, Jason will choose the opposite. But I think we've come to a decision!

Today I put together a mock up of what I'd like our pocketfold invitations to look like and Jason seemed okay with the design. His only comment was "The loopy font doesn't appeal to me per-say due to my limited fontography skills/knowledge and the whole engineering mindset" I told him that when marrying a graphic designer, decorative fonts might be involved.

Here is a little sample of the pocketfold, belly band, seal, and our monogram.

The squiggly plus sign, as Jason likes to call it, is actually two infinity symbols layered perpendicularly. I think he liked it because subconsciously he's familiar with that shape.

Ages ago I picked out all the paper I wanted to use, however I should know already that everything I think will be easy while planning this wedding, is really going to turn into some catastrophic wild goose chase.

This week I've been tracking down paper. I should have heeded Jim and Laura's advice, or rather, their mantra: "Hesitation Kills!"

Back in May I had Tom at Anchor Paper quote me some Astrobright Glisten cover in Lunar Blue to use as our pocketfolds for our invitations. He warned me that it was being discontinued but up until last week we weren't sure how many people we were inviting and heretofore how many invitations I would have to make.

So now I have 3-4 different people contacting vendors and searching for my perfect paper. Although I don't care if it has a metallic finish, my mother seems to think for a wedding invitation it is mandatory that it sparkles in SOME way.

Thus far I've only found one vendor who still has some in stock. Only problem is it would be twice the cost I was originally quoted by the ever so awesome Tom. That's not the most exciting thought...having to pay double because Wausau decided to discontinue this line of paper.

WHY!?! Why must my perfect paper be so hard to find?!

Hopefully our ordering lady at the office can track someone down who has it in stock. I have faith. Otherwise I'll just have to not have sparkly paper. Which won't really thrill my mother, but them's the breaks.