Previously in our invitation design series, we have featured some of our lovely designers’ work that showcased the latest trends of vintage or retro styles in the invitation design world.

Then we got a sneak peek of what goes on behind the curtain by asking the designers to share the process and show us how their designs were born. Lisa Barbero showed her deep appreciation for hand-drawn typography, while Erin from Simple te Design emphasized the importance of how “the use of textures, shadows, and even handle lettering can really bring a design to life”.

Now that we have covered some of the basics of the vintage and retro style, it’s time for us to get our hands dirty and start designing! Yet before we do so, pingg has decided to share with you some of the websites that will provide you the tools that you’ll need to get started.

For Inspiration:

It’s always a good idea to expose your eyes to wide range of graphic design. You never know where you will find happy accidents!

1. Pinterest:

3. Behance

4. Design Less Better

5. Graphic Exchange

For Textures:

You can easily find textures online. Here are some of the websites we’ve found.

1. Bittbox

2. Lost and Taken

3. Noupe

4. Abduzeedo

5. Tripwire Magazine

Tutorials:

It’s always fun to learn new tricks!

1. Vector Tuts

2. PSD Tuts

If you have any website that you would like to share with us or that we should know of, please let us know! Do you have any website that you regularly visit to get tools and tips on how to jazz up your design?

Previously in the first part of the Invitation Design Series we have discussed about the ongoing popularity or the trend of vintage and retro designs. And we asked few of our designers how they arrived to the subject matter and the detailed stylistic choices that they have made that we saw were prevalent in the ongoing design trend.

So, now we are curious about the alchemy behind their eye capturing designs.

1) Renee Pulve of Smudge Design Co.

Please check out Renee’s Pinterest Board »




2) Erin Lish of Simple Te Design

So designers, what inspires you the most during your design process? Please share with us!

My grandfather would always say, “In 10 years even a mountain can change.” He passed away way before anyone knew anything about the word “digital” and especially how much and how fast it would change our lives today.

“In 10 years grandpa, everything will change!”

With the digital realm rapidly advancing, we find ourselves living in a world where it’s no longer “can we?” but “we can!”. In this fast lane where we can see everything changing, we can’t help but to look back on times when things weren’t as fast paced as they are now. This nostalgic movement of longing for lost values of older times has been very well portrayed through successful sites like Etsy, where hand made items flourish or “apps” like Instagram, a photo editing mobile application that freezes any moment from our daily lives and puts them in a vintage setting where my grandpa would have belonged.

Invitation designs have definitely been influenced by such nostalgia, as seen by some of our top designers’ work. Their designs tend to look anything but “digital” that traditionally was sterile and technical. The subtle details that they use like paper textures give tangible feelings to their designs, and the appearances of the elements from the old times add timeless and priceless values to their designs.

Yet It is important for us as designers to design for reasons more than “oh that looks nice” and to ask ourselves why we do it. So, for the first part of the Invitation Design blog series, we have asked our designers the following questions:

How & Why?

1) Fenderskirts Vintage

 2) Lisa Barbero

3) RUCHI

So, now we turn the questions to YOU! How does this popular design trend of revisiting retro and vintage periods speak to you? How do realistic renderings of invitations enhance our user’s experience?

We all love art and we all love to be creative! Our mission has been to focus on supporting artists like you by creating a community where you can be inspired and share your artwork. But wouldn’t it be much sweeter if you had a little extra support?

That’s where the pingg Plus Premium Designer program comes in: by becoming a Premium Designer, every time a host uses one of your designs, you get paid!

So, how do you become a premium designer? Once you have joined the pingg Design Community, and you’ve created a portfolio of designs, send us an email at artists@pingg.com indicating you’d like to be considered to become a premium designer.  We’ll take a look at your portfolio and, if your work meets our editorial standards, we’ll add you to the roster of pingg Plus Designers.

Broadly speaking, when considering an artist for the pingg Plus Premium Designer program we look for:

1. Good Design

2. Relevancy

3. Consistency & Originality

4. Community Participation

1. Good Design

Well, no surprise here. Although the scope of a good design is so grand, when you’re creating a design keep one thing in mind: your user. We, the graphic fanatics, adore our iPhones, because of their kick-ass design and, most importantly, because they’re user friendly. The same concept applies to invite or ecard designs. Regardless of how mind blowing your design is,  if the user has to struggle to add text because your text field is too small, or can’t find the right color for the text that would stand out in a busy design, they’ll get frustrated and move on to another design.

Also, the user may want to add a picture to the invite, but only if their image works with your design. If you believe your design is strong and should stand on its own, don’t let it compete with other elements like text boxes and picture windows.  Instead, leave them out!  pingg’s ecards and invites allow additional text customization and picture options on the event web page. So relax; you’re not taking away any of the customizing capabilities from your users. Add text boxes and picture windows judiciously. Make the right decisions to simplify and enhance the user’s experience with your design.

Check out these examples:

Future Customer designed by The New Yorker

Here, The New Yorker makes an excellent choice by choosing not to add the text box, otherwise the text would’ve competed with the design.

Spring Picnic designed by Jenean Morrison

Jenean Morrison leaves the text area simple, so that it doesn’t compete with the rest of her design. Despite many different components of her design, she unifies them with the colors and the relationship between shapes.

2. Relevancy

Because many pingg users come to pingg with a specific event in mind, we highly encourage our designers to create designs that are event-specific. Before creating/uploading designs, think about upcoming events/holidays, or take a look at our top categories, such as birthday or wedding. Upload designs that are based on those events, and you’ll be surprised how much more frequently your designs are used. The truth is, users don’t want to second-guess what your design is for.  A specific, relevant design makes it easy for users to find that design, and increases the chances of that design being selected.

Wedding Dress designed by Jessica Swift

For example, a host looking for their sister’s bachelorette party  goes to the Wedding category and finds this design. Cute. SOLD!  Wow, that was simple!

3. Originality & Consistency

Originality is what makes your designs memorable and, with the right combination of good design, desirable.

Once you have the basic design elements down, start asking yourself specific questions: what else can I do with the texture? the lines? the shapes? Should I add more or leave room for the imagination? What other colors can I use? Make sure to stay on a clear design path when you ask these questions, because if you stray away too far, the users may never find you.

Once you have the right questions, keep the originality consistent throughout your designs. Now you have succeeded at impressing the users, you want them to come back to your collection for their next events. Brand yourself, so the users can recognize your work. Here are few examples:

Fenderskirts Vintage--Vintage Illustrations

Jason Naylor--Simple black, San Serif typography of (seemingly) vulgar messages

Katie Crawford--Soothing color pallets & animal illustrations.

Lindsay Brackeen--Crafts & Letters & Textures

4. Promote

We would also like to see how actively you participate in promoting you profile and collection. We supply you with the tools you need to promote your designs under the “promotional material” section of pingg Studio, but it’s up to you to spread the word. Take advantage of social networks like Facebook or Twitter. If you have your own website or blog, use the buttons and banners that we have created for you. Also, if you see any design that you like within pingg, feel free to leave a comment, because ‘Spread the Art’ also means supporting your fellow designers. So we’ve got your back. Now start designing!

http://www.jessicaswift.com/treasuring/