Wedding Invitation "Frame of Love"

Thinking about the oncoming wedding season, today I present you my new wedding invitation, Frame of love, now available on Minted.

Frame of love is a foil-pressed wedding invitation that features a border inspired on Madeira embroidery.

In the following images, it's possible to appreciate the front and back of the invitation:

And you can also choose other colors and formats:

In the following pictures, there is an example for the envelope:

And some additional elements, such as RSVP, address, reception, and thank you card:

If you are interested in buying the collection Frame of Love, click here.

I hope you liked it and have a nice week!

Credits:

Photography by Minted.
Invitation: Ana de Sousa for Minted

Ana de Sousa invitations in the Máxima magazine

And to begin the year, I’m proud to present you great news: Ana de Sousa─ Design & Illustration was invited by the magazine Máxima, elected the best women's magazine in Portugal, to be part of its supplement of Weddings for the month of February, contributing with one of my wedding invitations, as you can see in the following images:

Also, I want to inform that this will be a year filled of new projects, so I'll be a bit constrained in terms of time to write to you on a regular basis. But I promise you that, whenever is possible, I'll keep you informed.

A big thank you to all those who follow me, and see you soon!

Ana

Trends for Autumn-Winter 2015/2016: Oak Buff

Today I’ll continue presenting you the latest trends in colors according to Pantone’s suggestions for autumn-winter 2015/2016, demonstrating how to use them in your wedding stationery.

As you may know, I started this sequence showing some suggestions for the color Dried herb, an olive green color initially considered safari or military and now seen as sophisticated and chic. Then, I continued the color sequence presenting Desert Sage, a cool greenish gray considered by Pantone as the ideal neutral color. In my last post, I brought to you the third color of the mentioned sequence, Stormy Weather, a powerful bluish gray that reminds the sky on a gray and cloudy day. And today, I bring you the fourth color: the Oak Buff.

The Oak Buff is a color defined by Pantone as being a golden yellow that evoke the sun coming out after a storm. It is a sophisticated, warm and comforting color that can be easily combined with other colors.

For this post, the wedding stationery that I projected uses a simple palette of colors, made of Oak Buff, gray and white, combined with a design based on a calligraphic style. In the following images, there are suggestions for save the date and the invitation.

For the reception, here are suggestions for the menu , table number and scort cards.

And finally, here is a suggestion for the thank you card.

If you want to know how to use this color in other areas of your wedding, I recommend you to visit the post I wrote for the Zankyou Magazine. In that post you will find suggestions for clothing, flowers, decoration and cake design.

I hope you’ve liked this post and the wedding stationery that I made :) And stay tuned to the following color: Marsala!

Credits:

Text, photos and cards design by Ana de Sousa

To purchase, please contact the following email: anadesousa.design@gmail.com

Trends for Autumn-Winter 2015/2016: Stormy Weather

Hi! :)

After a brief time off due to overwork, I will return to the blog presenting today more information about Pantone’s colors for Autumn-Winter 2015/2016 and how to use them in your wedding stationery. As you may know, I started this sequence showing some suggestions for the color Dried herb, an olive green color initially considered safari or military and now seen as sophisticated and chic. Then, I continued the color sequence presenting Desert Sage, a cool greenish gray considered by Pantone as the ideal neutral color. And today, I bring to you the third color of the mentioned sequence: Stormy Weather.

Stormy Weather is a color defined by Pantone as being a powerful bluish gray that reminds the sky on a gray and cloudy day. Presupposes quality and luxury, while is still considered a reliable, cool and constant color. It can be combined with other colors such as yellow or green for a spring appearance, or corals, purples and creams, for a more autumnal feel.

As you can see in the pictures below, the wedding stationery projected uses a simple color palette consisting of the Stormy Weather (applied to the graphics corresponding to the leaves), white and pink colors. So, here are suggestions for save the date and the invitation:

For the reception, here are suggestions for the scort cards, table number and menu

And finally, here is a suggestion for the thank you card.

If you want to know how to use this color in other areas of your wedding, I recommend you to visit the post I wrote for the Zankyou Magazine. In that post you will find suggestions for clothing, flowers, decoration and cake design.

I hope you’ve liked this post and the wedding stationery that I made :) And stay tuned to the next color: Oak Buff!

Credits:

Text, photos and cards design by Ana de Sousa

To purchase, please contact the following email: anadesousa.design@gmail.com

Trends for Autumn-Winter 2015/2016: Desert Sage

Hi everyone!

As announced last week, I’m contributing with Zankyou Magazine by writing a series of weekly articles where I talk about the new trends in weddings for Autumn-Winter 2015/2016, which is based on the colors suggested by Pantone. Besides of writing the article, I am contributing through the realization of a wedding stationery line based on those same colors.

Last week, we published the first color’s suggestions: Dried Herb, where I also showed suggestions for wedding stationery. And today, I continue this sequence presenting the second color: the Desert Sage.

Desert Sage is a color defined by Pantone as being a cool greenish gray resulting in the ideal neutral color. It is also considered a timeless and discreet color, but at the same time, elegant and powerful enough to make a powerful statement by itself, although it can be combined with other colors such as light pink, peach or yellow, for more a spring look, or coral, brown or purple for a more autumnal touch.

In the wedding stationery that made, I used a simple palette of colors, constituted only by the Desert Sage and white, with the intention of demonstrating the elegance and color impact that the Desert Sage, by itself, could take. To give a different and but special touch to the line, it was included a very delicate texture in the graphic design.

In the following pictures, there are suggestions for save the date and invitation.

In the pictures below, you have the pattern of the back side for both: the save the date and the invitation.

For reception, in the following images are presented suggestions for scort card, menu and table number.

Finally, in the following image there is a suggestion for thank you card.

I hope you’ve liked this article and the wedding stationery. Please, If you like this article, share it! :) And stay tune because this week will be publishing the next article with the following color: The Stormy Weather!

Credits:

Text, photos and cards design by Ana de Sousa

To purchase, please contact the following email: anadesousa.design@gmail.com

Vania and Jorge's Wedding

And to start the week, on this Monday I wanted to show you the result of one of my work in the area of wedding invitations: the invitation of Vania and Jorge.

The theme chosen by the couple for their event is Rustic chic. In terms of colors, although the couple hadn’t initially decided the palette of color to be use in their wedding, was one of the Vania’s wishes that the invitation includes pastel tones.

Based on what the couple wanted and having total freedom to develop my creativity, both in terms of colors (since I included pastel tones) and graphics, I began to build an inspiration board where I gathered several pictures of wildflowers. From that, I selected the palette that I used in the invitation. This inspiration board was also used in the post Guide for wedding invitations and decorating where I presented some tips for planning and developing the graphics and decorating part of a wedding.

For the graphic part of the invitation, and in order to match to the selected palette, I chose simple wildflowers, and to give a rustic appearance but at the same time chic, I included a texture on the flower in the invitation.

And voilà! Here is the result:

• Front:

• Backer:

• Final result:

I hope you liked it, and stay tuned because in the next few days I will post more of my work in this area.

Have a nice week!

Credits:

Text, photos and invitation design by Ana de Sousa

To purchase, please contact the following email: anadesousa.design@gmail.com

Sonia and Pedro’s Wedding

Today I’m going to show you one of my works in the area of wedding invitations: the wedding invitation of Sonia and Pedro.

Sonia and Pedro are a couple who are planning their wedding for the next year. Although there’s still some time, the couple decided to start the organization of their event with some antecedence due to their limited availability.

The theme chosen for the event is flowers, with the inclusion of the brown color as one of the colors to be used.

Taking into consideration the wishes of the couple and the theme chosen, I began to build an inspiration board from which was determinate the color palette to be used in the invitations (to know more about inspiration boards, click on the next post). Also, I considered the trends in terms of themes and colors for this year: bold colors, attributing to the flowers that I designed a chic and rustic touch, in order to convey through the invitations a little from the place where the ceremony will be held.

The result is the one that I show you below:

• Front 

• Backer

Once the bride wanted to include a message in the invitations, and with the purpose of not having a lot of information on the front of the card, I decided to create an alternative backer with the message.

So, here is the final result:

I hope you liked it and stay tuned to the following post :)

Credits:

Text, photos and invitation design by Ana de Sousa

To purchase, please contact the following email: anadesousa.design@gmail.com

Guide for wedding invitation and decoration

After the definition of the date of your marriage, it is common that you ask  yourself the following questions: "I'm getting married! Where do I start? What should I do?"

It’s a fact that the organization of any event requires some preparation with order to ensuring a good result. And thinking on this, I’ve prepared a small 5 step guide in order to simplify the planning of the decoration and graphic part of the event ( save the date , invitations , menus, etc.).

1. Get inspired: It is not compulsory, but the easiest way to start organizing an event is choosing a theme. Once you have your theme chosen, you can start searching for images and objects. Then, you can build an image board to help you visualize and combine the ideas that you’ve found.

2. Choose a color palette: Define up to 5 colors and organize your event based on them. The image board is a precious resource that can assist you in your choose.

For example, in the following image I present the image board of an invitation that I did for a couple that is using the Rustic chic as theme . This image board consists of several images of wildflowers from which was generated one palette of colors to be used in the event and invitations.

Note: There are also tools like Adobe Kuler where you can find color palettes created by other users and can also help you to create your own palette.

3. Text and layout: In your graphic elements, go for less text and have more originality on the disposition of it. This will give a clean and modern look to your graphic elements. Remember: less is more!

4. Fonts: You can use more than one font to write the text of your graphic material. But don’t forget! Up to three different fonts.

Note: Every week I will select and publish a font, so stay tuned to my font section.

5. Be original: Add original elements such as textures, in order to give a different and special touch to both: the decoration and graphic material.

As an example, I show you the result of the invitation that I designed for the theme Rustic chic. I used the color palette from step 1 and the text was simplified to give a clean and chic aspect. And finally, it was added a texture in the flowers for a rustic feel.

* The invitation's text was modified in order to protect the original information

I hope you liked it and stay tuned for the next ideas!

Credits:
Text: Ana de Sousa

Images and Invitation: Ana de Sousa
Buy invitation: Contact anadesousa.design@gmail.com