Do Graphic Designers Harbor A Big Secret?
December 26th, 2007 @ 12:03 pm by Mrs. Milkshake
Now that Christmas is finally over and my FSIL (omg I’m using an abbv. that up until a few weeks ago I had no clue what it meant) got her gift, I can post about letterpress on weddingbee. I spent one weekend this december at a craft fair next to a lovely gal selling these beautiful letterpressed calendars by ilee. I came home with two and Mr. Milkshake was so impressed with them that the two thousand some odd dollars I had estimated for letterpressed invitations was suddenly okay with him.
If i had more time, I’d go ahead and design an entire calendar set with beautiful images for each month, but here we are at the end of december already and I’d still have to spend money on weddings favors for the day of.
On that note - everyone who does line-art type silkcreening - take this random guy at etsy, stevester, or almost anything at threadless - I swear they don’t all draw those images from scratch….
I remember visiting the Vancouver Art Museum in high school, and looking at the work of Vancouver artist gathie falk, whose sculptures I readily admit to liking. But when I looked at anything done in ink or pencil, fundamentally she was quite poor at drawing (I was entirely unable to google any images of her drawings for reference)!
So is it the same with graphic artists? I can’t imagine they all draw all their images……is it largely computer editing? Do they start with photographs and then let photoshop handle the rest…..? I am familiar with the illustrations available in dover books but are there other resources that graphic artists use that I’m overlooking?
I’m hoping to choose bridesmaid dresses that are rewearable (otherwise I think the BM’s are the ones who should really be entitled to a trash the dress session), so I’m considering going with “the little black dress.” I had trouble deciding upon any themes or colors for my wedding, but I think I managed to settle on blackberries because they’d go with the potential dresses, and they happen to be an august fruit. So after finding nothing by way of blackberry illustrations, I drew my own. Pick your favorites, or mix and match.
So here’s a look at what flickr has for save the date ideas.
See also some beautiful letter press images.
So what have you guys done/will you do for save the dates? There’s always simple cards, or a simple piece of paper. A fridge magnet, random moo cards that’ll probably get tossed, post cards, a simple card with a photobooth strip of me ’n him inside, a faux polaroid magnet with the date scribbled on the bottom white part……there must be more options than this?
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11 Responses to “Do Graphic Designers Harbor A Big Secret?”
Hi Miss Milkshake! There are a few options that we graphic designers use for illustrations. Personally, I need a visual reference when drawing an image by hand or in the computer; so if I need to create an illustration on the computer, I first find an image to use as a reference (usually with a Google image search, or on iStock’s website), bring it into Adobe Illustrator, and trace it to get the general structure and add my own creative input. Or, you can bring in an image you love and make it into a vector drawing. This includes drawing your own image by hand (if you prefer this over a mouse) and scanning it. This is a good reference to learn what to do:
http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=31602
There is also good ol’ freehand, but it does take some getting used to to draw with the mouse.
A really great resource for personal projects (ie., projects in which you’re not selling the final product) is iStock (www.istockphoto.com). You can search specifically for vector images, and there are TONS of them. With a search for “blackberry” in illustrations only, I found 65 matches:
Line drawings like you’re talking about are not usually created in Photoshop — especially for pieces that need to be professionally letterpressed or engraved, printers pretty much always require vector images. But, for your own personal use, this is certainly an option if you don’t need to send the files to anyone for printing!
Good luck! Hope this helps you!
We did stickers, I ordered them from Moo - I used a picture of my fiance and I. The card (a 4.25×5.5 double sided card) read “Use this sticker to mark your calendar for our special day” It was just the right size to fit on a standard calendar grid on our wedding day. They have been a big hit with those I showed/shared with (they are being mailed in about 3 weeks for our August wedding, as I didn’t want them to get mixed in with Christmas cards and I wanted to be sure people had a 2008 calendar before I sent them a sticker). You can check out pictures if you’d like. (I had originally printed my own stickers on label stock but then saw the moo ones which are much prettier and cleaner looking. I used the stickers I had originally designed on the caps of my water bottles)
http://www.xanga.com/FromMs2Mrs/600152597/stds–favors.html
Great drawings!
Every graphic designer is different- I usually trace from a photograph or freehand in Illustrator, if I can’t find something ready-made. 
For Save the Dates, we did a postcard. Glossy image on one side, accommodations info on the other with the address area. Worked beautifully, had them printed through Vistaprint.
My FH fell in love with that same calendar so much that he sought out his own letterpress, bought it (or three of them), had my work deliver a mammoth 2300# machine to our garage. . . Anyway, he made his own calendar as well as our Save the Date cards, our invitations are next and we decided that little packs of Thank You cards would be the perfect wedding favors. And he is also working on personalized stationery and custom invites. All letterpressed and ABSOLUTELY beautiful.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8557157
This is the link on etsy where he is selling the calendars (and if you are interested in any other custom work- drop him a note)
I think the big mysterious secret might be just pure patience, seeing the bigger picture and sometimes luck! Like you mentioned before, not all designers are amazing sketch artists - I definitely cannot draw for the life of me but I reference a lot. I use Illustrator to trace photographs I take.
istockphoto has also become an amazing frugal resource for illustrations. And if you can’t find the exact illustration you want, you can find illustrators on istock, whose style you like and commision them to make one up for you.
I know some designers use Flash to ‘vectorize’ images - basically turns a photograph into bitmap and then into vector art - but it does take time to edit it down to a nice flat vector i think. I have basic Flash skills so this is a bit generalizing in terms of how to do it.
At work we invest in a lot of dover art-esque cd collections. But it looks like you did just fine with your own blackberry illustrations - looks fantastic - reminds me of those ‘figure’ illustrations in science textbooks.
As for save-the-dates, I was thinking of doing the photobooth strip idea- but since it seems quite popular now, we may have to rethink it too
I freehand a lot of my drawings, but I was an artist before I was a designer, and I know plenty of designers that can’t draw worth a lick.
Go to Istockphoto.com and choose “illustrations” instead of photos for your serach and you’ll find oodles of useable vector illustrations of what you want - each one only costs a few bucks to download.
Good luck!
Jen, I find it amazing that your FH got into letterpressing!! That is SOOOO awesome!! =)
the boy and i made ours using postcards from vistaprint.com. they’re super cheap when they have one of their many promos (our total cost $7.00 for 100 including shipping). the only problem with vistaprint is they e-mail you constantly after - so make up a new e-mail address if you use them. i’m a magazine illustrator by profession, so the the drawing on the front was pretty easy. stock illustration sources make me sad because they tend to degrade the illustration market, but i won’t get on my soapbox here. i understand that for many individuals, commissioning an artist for specific drawings may be out of the question.
We did Vistaprint magnets - simple but just what we wanted! I got that letterpress calendar from FI for Christmas and I was giddy with glee!
Wow amazing. Its beautiful calendar. I want to have that also in my home. Thanks for sharing. I love the design.
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Thanks have a wonderful day.
Mrs. Milkshake, Seattle/Vancouver, BC
Age and Occupation: 23, Pharmacist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Pharmacist
Engagement Date: May 2007
Wedding Date: August 2008
Blogging Since: December 6, 2007
Venue: Victorian Mansion
About Me: Despite the fact that I’ve invested many long years of my life studying the sciences in college, I’m glad to be out of there and I would never do it again! I’m super artsy at heart - I run an indie craft site, I grew up shooting and developing my own film, doing jazz and ballet, and the whole gamut of art classes. I’ve been called a Jane of all Trades… but I was also told many years ago not to make my passion my career because it’d suck the fun out of it. Hence my choice of day job. We live in Seattle but are having our wedding in Canada to be fair to all our family and friends.
50% of our guests are from OOT/overseas so we skipped on save the dates. We sent out newsletter instead. I just used ivory paper with a little bit of texture and a matching envelope. I was going to print the text red but my parents didn’t think it was appropriate. My MOH and I opted for grayscale instead:-) We included the closest airports around our area, activities, shopping center for the ladies, accommodations, car rental and a mini-timeline. And of course a picture of us since some of my relatives haven’t met him and vice versa.
By the way, love your drawing:-)