New fonts

Not too long ago I received a wonderful- "hey you haven't bought anything in awhile here's a $20 with no minimum purchase" coupon from the lovely folks over at veer.com which is basically as close as I've ever gotten to the toys'R'us sweepstakes where you have 5 minutes to run through the store and get what you can. SO I bought me some lovely fonts. They were both around $20 and I couldn't decide so -- I got both.

The first is very art deco old school wonderfulness: Estilo.
When I went to go create these samples, for some reason the only things popping in my head were tongue twisters which, though fun to say, usually only showcase a lot of the same letter. I wanted to do a pangram (sentence with all the letters of the alphabet) with it as well but that sort of puzzlry is way out of my league and "the quick brown fox..." was feeling a little played out. Thankfully big huge type foundries have the same thoughts and have sponsors several contests about it. The pangram above is from a typophile.com contest and written by Joe Pemberton.

Second we have RTF Amethyst which I love as an alternative to the very used in wedding invitation: script fonts.That tongue twister is also the one that I am the very worst at. Although I did read one while I was looking for new tongue twisters that I don't think we ever did in theater classes and probably for good reason "I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's mate, And I'm only plucking pheasants 'cause the pheasant plucker's late." Tee hee.

So there are my two new awesome fonts that are looking for wedding invitation homes.

Two slightly related projects on the horizon are: 1) to revamp the website to maybe add places for customers to add feedback, definitely to places for customers to add to delicious or digg, and maybe some larger rotating images on the homepage and 2) to come up with a quiz for new customers- specifically custom customers (these tongue twisters appear to have me on an alliteration kick). The other day I was talking to a bride trying to get an idea of what she was looking for in invitations but she didn't really have a theme or a strong connection to the location of her wedding-- all she really had were her colors. So I was trying to illicit a little more info from her but I kept asking for descriptive things that she wanted her wedding like romantic or modern but after talking with her for a bit I realized I'm probably not going to ask "Do you want your wedding to be elegant... or fairytale... or dramatic?" and have the bride go "No, actually, I'd really like my wedding to be trashy and fugly."

I think the biggest variation you get with people trying to describe their weddings is "classic" or "modern" which even of themselves-- creates BIG ranges. So in the back of my mind I was thinking-- "Man this all sounds so familiar. I feel like I've been through this before" and, no, not with my own wedding but when I bought that book that I had read about in Domino then coveted for a year and finally bought about 6 months ago-- YUP-- Style Statement by Carrie McCarthy & Danielle LaPorte.

I got about half way through and I did start getting an idea of what my style statement would revolve around but I couldn't find any good words to encompass it (it was the concept of stories/imaginations-- yes, the girl who designs wedding invitation for fictional characters loves stories-- I know, you must be shocked but it was kind of a cool a-ha moment for me) anyway- and then ended up hiding the book on myself while I was frantically cleaning for guests.

I was recounting this whole ordeal to a photographer friend who does weddings as well who had just come from an initial meeting with a client and had had a similar situation and after asking a couple key questions about what the groom liked to do fell into a wealth of wonderful ideas where to shoot their engagement photos. It just so happens I am traveling back down below the Mason-Dixon where she lives so we are going to try and make this all happen this week.

Aren't you excited? I looooove learn more about yourself quizzes. Actually I think I'm going to go work on my style statement right now.

And lastly-- if anyone is looking for a good bridesmaid's gift or a gift to give to a bride or, hell, an "I had a bad day and I need compensation" gift-- Bath and Body Works "Perfect Cashmere" items are so wonderful. I just received the knit lounge set, the robe, and the slippers for my birthday and I AM LOVING IT.