My friends Matt and Casey got married earlier this year. My wife hosted Casey’s wedding shower and asked me to “design something real quick.” She had planned a shower where all guests would bring a recipe to help the bride jump start her domestic arsenal. Of course, this brought to mind the idealistic housewife from the 1950′s. Also appropriate to that genre was the orange and aqua color combination employed in the design. To top it all off, I tried “baking-in” the imperfections of screen printing into the design. If you look closely, you can see how some of the lettering is a little offset from the background. The final printed product was a 3×5 card to mimic an index card (ya know, for recipes). You may even be able to see the light blue and red rules in the background.

Casey Brewer Wedding Shower Invitation

Casey Brewer Invitation Detail

Once I began freelancing, things changed significantly. Suddenly I found myself in situations where I didn’t only have the freedom to give my expert opinions, I was actually hired for them. Tennessee Industrial Printing had acquired a new digital press in early 2008. I was hired to develop a small advertising campaign to run in various local publications. I was amazed at how natural the whole process was. I sat down with the folks at TIPs and just listened to their needs. I was also very interested in hearing the message they needed to get out. It was quite simple: they had a new digital press that allowed them to turn around large print jobs quickly. They now had more direct mail capabilities as well as variable data abilities. Simply put: fast, mailable, high-volume, quality. 

After the dust clears from such a meeting, the most important details rise to memory. I sat down and began typing the copy for what we planned to be a three-ad campaign. I chose the three most important attributes, applied quality to each, and developed three distinct concepts. After scouring hundreds of photos that visually communicated these three concepts, I developed the headlines and eventually came up with the illustrative designs (target, clock, and ruler). Putting it all together was the fun part. 

Developing the TIPs campaign was a blast. After keeping my mouth shut for so long, I began to see experience and observation paying off. TIPs is a great home-owned group of folks to work with. If you’re ever in need of some great high-quality, fast turn-around, high-volume printing or variable data, direct mail services, check them out.