What's one of the best parts of running a stationery company? Product development all the way. We have amazing people here at Botanical PaperWorks who create awesome products and design. It's fun to work with them and to create stationery for our customers.
Today I'll explain the design process for our Wedding product called Seal and Send Wedding Invitations. This is a special style of wedding invitation that combines an invitation together with an RSVP card. The long panel is an invitation in the top 2/3rds of the paper and a perforated RSVP card at the bottom. I'll show some pictures as we go through the design process so you'll see what I mean.
First, our team starts with gathering inspiration. We look at a lot of blogs, Pinterest boards, wedding magazines and media in general to look for emerging trends. The team takes all of the colors, textures and motifs that they've found, groups it into themes and creates a set of inspiration boards.
Park Birds Seal and Send Wedding Invitations
Next, the product development team gets together to look at the inspiration boards. We talk about the themes and about what we're hearing from our own customers. At this point, we make a decision to explore some of the themes and the design team is given the assignment to start working.
Rustic Lace Seal and Send Wedding Invitations
With their assignment, the design team starts creating a set of designs for each theme. This stage can take some time as the creative process can't be rushed. Sometimes I'll drop by and see the work in progress, but mostly I keep away and wait to see the designs when they're ready to show me.
With designing Seal and Send Wedding Invitations, the format presents both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity of a format that combines both the invitation and RSVP card together is that the design can flow from the invitation to the RSVP. The long panel can be one continuous design and this works well with a pattern or a design like the Bloom Seal and Send Wedding Invitations at the end of this post.
The challenge of the long format of Seal and Send Wedding Invitations is that there is a lot of space to fill. Some designs such as the Rustic Tree Seal and Send Wedding Invitations just work better with the main design on the invitation and a coordinating but different design on the RSVP card.
The design team has to consider the motif and design that they're creating and how it will flow from the top to the bottom of the invitation. It's a bit complicated but our designers are always ready for a challenge.
Romantic Lace Seal and Send Wedding Invitations
The last stage is reviewing and editing the designs. We talk about colors, design, fonts and format. We also look at the coordinating pieces such as Thank You Cards and Menu Cards. We'll go back and forth as many times as needed to get the design just right.
Bloom Seal and Send Wedding Invitations
Finally, the design is approved and ready for placing online. The team creates the files for web and print and the marketing team gets the products live. We let the world know about the new designs by writing a blog post and talking about it in social media. And we have a little celebration here at Botanical PaperWorks to celebrate another successful product launch.
The designing process is fun because of the talent that we have here at Botanical PaperWorks and because of our customers who enthusiastically embrace our new designs and trust us with their wedding invitations.