Weddingbee Blog

I left off our discussion of my STDs with a bit of a fail design. As much as I wanted to come up with my own unique design, I wasn’t very good at drawing or shading.

I was fortunate to find a solution that I think worked out even better. Meet the best comic ever, Extraordinary Comics.

Source: Extraordinary Comics

I’m about 90% sure that Li has a camera in our house and is just drawing PBear and me. Yes, we don’t have an adorable cat (though do adorable hamsters count?), but it’s very creepy otherwise how close the comic matches our lives sometimes, especially this, this, this, this, or that one. Either way, it’s a fun comic and great for procrastination.

Plus, unlike me, Li can draw. Every 10 comics, she draws these more elaborate drawings.

Source: Extraordinary Comics

Aren’t they just gorgeous?

Source: Extraordinary Comics

As soon as I saw this comic, I knew this had to be the image for our STDs. It was absolutely perfect. It had the exact feel of the wedding, a whimsical tea party in the woods, and the drawing was absolutely gorgeous. I immediately shot off an email asking if I could use this image. I waited with baited breath until she responded that she’d be happy to let me!

Thus, the birth of our STDs. I cropped the image so the details of the tea party could be seen and then overlaid the important text on top of the table where there was enough empty space.

Image drawn by Li Chen of Extraordinary Comics

We went through a couple of iterations. I really wanted to fit all of the text onto the table itself, but it looked cramped in one direction and too spaced in another—i.e., it didn’t look like it belonged. I think I went through 10 or so iterations before deciding how I liked it.

Things I learned along the way:

1.) Start with the highest image resolution you can. Typically, people recommend you keep your images at 300 PPI when printing to maintain the highest resolution. That means if you’re trying to print out a standard postcard of 3.5 x 5 inches, you need 1050 x 1500 pixels minimum. Sometimes, that’s just really hard to maintain. I ended up at about 200-ish PPI, and I think the final postcards look spotless. Your mileage may vary.

2.) Use the correct font for the job. I originally wanted to use our invitation font (Carolyna) for our STDs, to make the invitations and STDs flow together. However, the Carolyna looked very out of place in this context (as demonstrated above). Ultimately, Lady Rene made much more sense in this context and it looks so much better.

3.) Think outside the box (or table, in this case). Sometimes, the design idea that you are going for just doesn’t work very well. Though I really wanted to get our names, Boston, and the date all together, it was just too cluttered in too small of an area. By spacing it out, we could get names to be the focus.

Image drawn by Li Chen of Extraordinary Comics

4.) Incorporate your design throughout the whole piece. I took the top left corner of the image that I hadn’t used on the front for the back of the postcard. You have to be careful that any image you use on the back is light colored enough to get mailed. I used a gradient fade so I could keep the color on the left side.

5.) Stay away from the bottom of the postcard. The bottom half an inch of the postcard is where the post office barcode goes. You want to stay away from the bottom so your text doesn’t get covered up.

6.) Use the bar separator to include more text. Though most people don’t really notice it, the separator I have in the middle is a great place to add more text. I used it to add the copyright information as well as our address.

7.) Get people to look over your design before you print. I think this has been said this a million times already, but I think it’s important enough to say a million more times: get someone to look over it. I had the help of some people who let me know where the design worked and where it didn’t. It made me fall even more in love with the final design, and it is everything I imagined in my head and so much much more.

Having them printed and out in the world is such an amazing feeling. The front is this amazing glossy paper, which just makes me drool every time. Oh so pretty.

 Image drawn by Li Chen of Extraordinary Comics

Anyone else put way too much time and thought into your STDs? Didn’t it just get very real all of a sudden? Did you feel that rush of excitement as well when you mailed them off?