FMP: Save the Dates Card Research

Now that I have managed to come up with a design for the wedding invitation I would like to create other cards to bring together a whole set, and the Save the Dates card is one of them!

The Save the Date card is the card you would normally send out a couple of months before the wedding invitation, and from what I know they have quite a simple design. However I had a look around some designs and have collected them all onto a mood board below.

Mood Board

Image sources: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Wedding-Stationary-2/6445683 http://www.behance.net/gallery/Summery-Save-the-Dates/7365213

Inspirational Designs

I am going to take some of the designs above that I find inspirational, and I’m going to analyse them below. This should help me figure out what to place on my Save the Date card so that I wouldn’t have to redo my research later on during the designing process.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Summery-Save-the-Dates/7365213

What caught my eye about this design in particular was that the Save the Date card had two sides, and one of the sides showcased a little calendar with the date of the wedding. I thought this was a really cute and clever way of letting people remember the date as they might find it easier to remember the date if bright colours and cute illustrations were used. It reminds me back when I did flashcards on different colours for each subject to help me remember keywords and I often did little icons on them just in case.

This therefore brings about the connotations of student years, where people looked at their holiday dates eagerly maybe just after their exams. The reason why I say "student" is because of the fun type they've used and the little hearts brings up the connotations of doing little doodles in study books.

The calendar might be another way to make people jot down the date because it would mimic the style of their own calendars, so when the date approaches they'll think "Oh I've seen this before…" and then remember the Save the Date card.

The colours themselves aren't too bright that they blind the reader, but they're unusual enough that they pop out of the page. This is helped by the way they're used because I never thought I'd mix blue with red!

Actually, now that we're looking at the red I've noticed that it isn't red red but more of a gentle shade of it, and this is probably because the designer wanted it to stand out but not too much to distract the viewer from the rest of the important information. I'd say that this colour would be coral then, not red, and the mixture of coral and blue reminds me of the beach and summer. This is because the blue reminds me of blue skies, and coral of those ice creams I used to have whenever we go on a day trip in summer.

There is a total of three typefaces used in this invitation, and normally I would say that this is way too much but… It works. I think it's because of the similarity in typestyle (the one used in the banner and Flagstaff in particular) so it doesn't look as if they're different at a glance. As all of these are sans serif it gives the appearance of friendliness, and that the couple are quite easy going.

This mixture of typefaces reminds me of the posters during the Industrial Revolution where designers were eager to mix up as many typefaces as possible. This in itself is exciting of how the designer had thrown some typefaces together like an experiment - and it worked!

Conclusion:

I really liked this design because of how little things like the hearts and the colours used enforces that fun and summery atmosphere. It looks quite minimalist as well because of the small amount of words used, and this shows that Save the Date cards don't necessarily have to have loads of information on them.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Save-the-Date/3278635

I think that this design is absolutely adorable; it’s minimalist, has really calm pastel colours, and the vectors at the bottom have a simple design that really completes the minimalist appearance.

What I liked the most was that the type is aligned on both sides that create a very clean and professional look to it, because the designer had taken their time to adjust the kerning so that everything was perfect.

The mixture of designs produces the connotations of the designs showcased in the industrial revolution where designers reached out and experimented as much as they could, discovering new and bold designs. I just love the 3D typeface used for the date as it really stands out from the rest of the information even though it’s in an extremely light colour. This then highlights the most important part of the card: the date of the wedding.

The first serif typeface reminds me of cowboys and woodland, which really brings about the whole woodland feel when combined with the vector illustrations of the two stags at the bottom. It reveals the theme of the wedding without having to say what it is, and that’s all through typeface choice and imagery. I find that it’s a bit too squashed down in my opinion and yet I understand that they had to make the pt. size smaller so that there is more of a focus on the date and the names of the couple.

Luckily they had used the same typeface for the bottom line and in the same colour so it doesn’t look as if the design is bombarded by different styles. Looking closer I can see that the designer had made sure that the typefaces for the date and names were very similar to avoid this as well.

The way that the type has been positioned and the amount of words used enables it to have space to breathe, and so that the illustration would fit in nicely just beneath it. I really like how they’ve just drawn a silhouette for the stags because then there isn’t too much to look at.

These stags could represent the couple, and just looking at the stags immediately makes my mind jump to the landscapes of Canada and of beautiful woodland and mountains. Stags are very strong and independent, and as same-sex marriages are unfortunately still rare this could then link in with the fact that they are standing up for themselves and for their love for each other.

Conclusion:

I just love how minimalist the overall design is and how they thought of how their typeface would reflect the theme of the wedding without giving too much away.

http://ohsobeautifulpaper.com/2010/03/sarah-jons-nature-inspired-save-the-dates/

This is probably the first design I had looked at that used the same typeface throughout! They have made variances to it e.g. by placing the top line in uppercase, and this simple technique then makes it appear as if they’ve used different typefaces and highlights the most important parts.

It seems that they have probably used the same typeface for Sarah + Jonathan but created an outline to it in blue, filling it in white. I had done a similar technique to one of my first designs, which is why I knew how they did this, haha!

The typeface is extremely cute because of how smooth the curves are and the fact that it resembles the handwriting of a young girl. It is very “innocent” because of how young it looks and the small serifs remind me of little bird feet in the uppercase letters.

To support this idea they had included a little illustration of an owl in the right-hand corner of the invitation, holding up a sign saying “more to come!” This brings about the “cute” appearance because of how sketchy it is as well as how sketchy the banner is.

This “sketchiness” reminds me of doodles in a scrapbook, thus linking in with my previous thought of the typeface reminded me of the handwriting of a young girl. This is emphasised by the little stars scribbled onto the banner.

I really like how they have included a border on the design but at a low opacity so it creates a sort of texture to the paper instead of it being an illustration. I would really like to do something similar to this!

Conclusion:

Unlike the previous design I had analysed, the theme for this wedding is a bit more difficult which left me wondering what it could’ve been: was it something to do with birds? Flowers? Scrapbooking? It could’ve been anything!

This left me curious about the wedding invitation design and I realised that I too want to achieve this curiosity in my design.

http://abduzeedo.com/super-cute-save-date-cards

Unlike the banner from the previous design, this is more refined and has a lot more detail due to the thin lines that make up the shading. It reminds me of vintage Victorian posters because of this technique and of old, cream newspapers.

Yet there is something elegant about this design, and to emphasise the elegance the designers has chosen a very “swirly” typeface for the “and” to connect the names of the two couples as it hooks onto the g and leads off to the k in Mark. This could link in with the connection of the couple and the fact that they’ll be bonded in marriage.

Another aspect that reminds me of the Victorian times is, once again, the mixture of type. I am a bit overwhelmed by the numerous styles and find that it is a bit too much for my liking, especially because they are completely different from one another. The typeface used in “save the date” isn’t used elsewhere, and the only typeface that I’m happy with is the one used for the names as it looks similar to that used in the banner. This mixture also messes up the theme of the wedding because it brought up so many contrasting connotations; cowboys, elegance, “metal” from the slab serif, and vintage because of the banner. It’s just too much for my liking!

I think that if they had a strong theme in mind then they should stick to the typefaces that mostly resemble it because, as I have just mentioned, there are so many connotations whirling around my mind when I looked at this that I had to take a step back.

Luckily the colours they’ve used aren’t very bold which calms the business of the type down a bit. I actually like the combination of orange and blue/turquoise because although they are contrasting colours, they’re not too in-your-face because of the fact the design used lighter and more pastel shades of the two.

The simple forms of the flowers allowed me to concentrate first on the type and then on the rest of the design. I think this is because of the white and the blue being very close to each other in lightness that I didn’t really see them at first.

Conclusion:

There were just way too many typefaces going on, but I do like the way they laid out the type in an ellipse. I also like the banner design included.

http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/projectpretty/product/jessica-save-the-date-invitation

The little shakes in the type really gives away that it is probably done by hand, but instead of this being a negative aspect it is a positive one as it gives the card some personality and it shows that the designer had paid so much attention to it that they had done it by hand. It means that it’s more personal, that it isn’t something that would be massed produce because they had done the names by hand as well (although this isn’t as obvious because the letters are a lot neater) and that maybe only a few people were invited to attend the wedding.

I really like the way they had linked in the type for the “save the date”, because it creates the effect of it being an illustration instead of simply being words on paper. The fact that the first letters are connected could reflect the couple, and it has been drawn so beautifully that it looks as if they belonged together. The fact that the type is cursive only completes the feeling of bonding and there is a nice contrast between thick and thin strokes so that the thin ones would just smoothly flow out into pretty little spurs, descenders, tails… this transition is so smooth that it reminds me of the stems of flowers just brushing against the wind.

Even though there aren’t any illustrations apart from the small border at the bottom the designer has managed to make the type fill the space, leaving it enough space to breathe but not so much that there is a lot of white space. All of the type had been spaced out beautifully so that each line would attract the viewer’s attention so that they won’t skip out on any important information.

Conclusion:

I love the typeface they’ve used and the fact that they stuck with the hand-drawn theme, because it makes the design seem a bit more personal.

http://www.invitationcrush.com/heart-to-heart-save-the-date-cards/

This design reminds me of the one with the two stags, because it just has that minimalist approach to it and it also doesn’t give away what the theme of the wedding is too obviously. I think that it’s probably along the lines of a vintage wedding because of the way they had drawn out the heart so that it looks as if it’s cut out of a scrapbook, and the cute arrow illustration that goes through the “save the date”. This arrow is a nice subtle illustration and reminds me of Cupid’s arrow, showing the love the couple has for one another.

The type they’ve used mimics hand lettering, and it reminds me of the type used in “hipster” photos where they just slap on some text over a photo with an emotional quote or something. It resembles the type I had used in my typographic poster of Ed Sheeran, and there’s just something really cute about it. I think it might be because the strokes are extremely thin and there isn’t a contrast between thick and thin because there aren’t any thick strokes! This is the reason why I think it looks like handwriting because handwriting, in reality, doesn’t really have any variance in stroke strength.

It’s also quite tall and stretched, and the close kerning only emphasises how tall they are and yet because of the thin strokes it doesn’t make the letters appear squashed next to each other. The little curves around “and” separates the couples name and gives each name a bit of space to breathe, and this is the same for the dots to separate the different parts of the date.

Now that I think of it, the heart shape reminds me of soft cotton fabric but I cannot think for the life of me where I have seen such fabric. I could almost “feel” the tiny bumps of this fabric in the design because of the way they had done the lines so that its both white and cream (so cream for the shadows and white for the highlight). This technique does appear simple until you think of how much time it had taken for the designer to draw these lines!

Conclusion:

Overall this appears to have a minimalist design at first until you realise how much detail is in the fabric heart to make me think of fabric! I really like the type they’ve used as it really sets the vintage theme.

Overall Conclusion of designs:

I have found that all of these designs have one thing in common, and that is that they have minimalist designs. There’s not a lot of information displayed apart from the couple’s names, the date, and sometimes the location of the wedding. For those that did include a location this only shows the state that the wedding would be held out, not the exact venue.

I would like to also do a minimalist design that sets the fairy tale theme but not in the obvious way. I would have to make the design link in with my invitation so I’d use the same colour scheme and typeface.

In terms of wording they normally have:

Save the Date
For the wedding of... On most of them they'll only have the first names of couple
Date
(sometimes the location)
Invitation to follow

As I have just mentioned, these Save the Date cards usually only display the first names of the couple. I think that I would need to do two versions - one with their full names and one without - because I had included their full names on the invitation.

I also need to think whether or not I'll go with my original idea of "once upon a time", as it might be too much detail for a Save the Date card.

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Tuesday 23 April 2013

FMP: Save the Dates Card Research

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