Tyler Tracy and Meredith Kalina (now the Kalina family) asked me to do their wedding invite with just the wedding colors in hand. Oh... and Tyler said he wanted a whale somewhere in the design.



First, I had to think of a message to put on the front of the invite. Given the tough time restraints I picked the obvious... Love.

I started off with the all important whale. Then, I drew out some sans letter-forms but kept them hollow so that I could go in and add some ornate detail. Then I thickened the letter strokes and added some details to the corner of each letter. I then saw the opportunity to make a connection with the ornate frame and the water protruding from the whale's blowhole.

The other side of the invite and the RSVP card were all created using existing elements for detail elements or inspiration. The typography came pretty easily. I based the type off of existing typefaces, recreated them, and went to town. And, of course, scripts work well with any wedding invitation.