In this new series from the Dauphine Press design department, we will be sharing some of our favorite hot new style finds and making suggestions for how you can “get the look” using the many custom elements available to you in our design library. Keep in mind that ALL of our stationery suites receive a designer’s touch and every one of our designs is customizable so pairing the color palette below with any of our motifs or fonts allow us to create a stationery suite that is unique to you.

We are constantly pulling inspiration from fashion and interior design magazines, blogs and the world around us and we love nothing more than to daydream about how to translate a specific style into a beautifully printed piece of stationery.

We are currently swooning over this shoot from InStyle (March 2012) and love how Rose Byrne manages to look sultry and festive all at once. The soft yet playful colors and sparkling details would make a perfect wedding invitation! Click here for more from this gorgeous shoot.

Image Credits: InStyle Magazine, March 2012 / Photographed by Giampolo Sgura / Styled by Heathermary Jackson

Have your own inspiration pulled but not sure how to make it come to life? Feel free to contact us or leave a comment below for designer input on how to best achieve your look! Looking for more inspiration from the Dauphine Press design team? Follow us on Pinterest to see what’s inspiring us.

We are sharing a personal journey with you today. Yes, it’s personal, but when you love what you do for work (like we do!) personal and professional often become one. At the end of last year, our art director Katrina took a trip to Japan (on her way to Thailand for a little R&R) and made sure to fit in a visit to our Japanese retailer, Ito-Ya.

Located in the posh Ginza neighborhood of Tokyo, Ito-Ya is an amazing nine-floor stationery mecca. We are very proud to be one of the few custom letterpress wedding lines they carry!

Here are a few photos Katrina captured during her visit:

Clockwise from top: /1/ View from outside, their signature giant paperclip  /2/ The Matsuya Ginza mall  /3/ View of the bustling first floor (it was this packed everywhere!) /4/ The nine floors! /5/ View of the neighborhood from the first floor /6/ Ito-ya carries our cards through Madison Park Greetings!

Most of the orders we work on together include art provided by Ito-Ya of the invitation wording, which our team pairs with elements from our Design Library. The result is always gorgeously striking and we love seeing our designs along with the intricate Japanese scripts on the letterpress printed cards.

There are so many more photos to share than we have room for in this post, but we thought we would send you off with a few of Katrina’s favorites from her travels about the city.

Sensō-ji -  an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, Taitō, Tokyo.

Design inspiration: Beautiful engraving on the Japanese Yen

Walking through Asakusa 

Mural  in Ueno

Walking through Ueno district, the smaller neighborhood she stayed in. She loved the laid back and peaceful attitude of this place and can’t wait to go back to visit.

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On that note, we hope your weekend is filled with fun travels and lots of inspiration!

For those of you on our mailing list, you already received these details in your in-box, but we wanted to be sure to spread the love and share the details of our latest promotion and secret recipe here on The Fine Print as well. We are big fans of Valentine’s Day around here so this promotion and our printed Valentine were tons of fun to put together — and even more fun to share!

Complimentary 2-color printing on all accessory pieces.
When you order a 2-color invitation or save the date from our Custom Wedding Portfolio,
we will upgrade your 1-color accessory pieces to 2-color for free.

 Offer applies to any order placed on or after February 14, 2012. Order must include a 2-color invitation or save the date. You will be billed for the 2-color invitation/save the date and 1-color accessory pieces to receive complimentary second color on each accessory piece. Second color on accessory pieces will be the same ink color as the invitation/save the date. Offer also valid for 3-color invitation/save the date. Offer ends March 14, 2012.

Please be sure to indicate the promo code: SWEET TREAT

We added a second ink AND a new colored foil to our Valentine’s card this year.
Don’t forget to hang onto the recipe below to sell this as a fabulous wedding invite!

INKS: Sunshine & Salmon / FOIL: New Reflective Pink Foil
PAPER & ENVELOPES: SAVOY Brilliant White
EMBELLISHMENTS: 7-bar Ainsley Frame #1 die-cut & Ainsley Foil Die #1
MOTIFS: frame-68, banner-04 b,  flourish-30 & heart-01
FONTS: Bodoni Tilted, Pasticceria & Brothers

If you would like to sign-up for our mailing list to make sure you are the first to receive details on our latest promotions, click here.

Hope it has been a bright and shiny one!

We’re here today with another installment of Fine Details from The Fine Print. These are some of our favorite posts to share with you because they are full of all of the exciting things (big and small) that we have the pleasure of experiencing every day at Dauphine Press.

I think we’ll keep up the trend of starting off with gorgeous visuals. We have a bundle of images to share that are straight from our print studio in New York and our design studio in California. Of course we love every final pieces once they have been printed and embellished, but as true paper and print lovers we absolute adore the process. Take a look:

/1/ Isn’t this stack of cards with gold painted edges gorgeous?! Just imagine the endless possibilities for designs printed on those luminous cards! /2/ We couldn’t include gold without including silver. This piece has a little twist though – these cards fall into the Dauphine Press Couture category with the 4-ply cards, custom foil corner detail and silver painted beveled edges! Stunning! /3/ We love this action shot of a Marinwood save the date on press. /4/ Another action shot, but foil this time showing the roll of foil after stamping an intricate frame on to that same Marinwood save the date.

/5/ The process of hand-lining envelopes! /6/ That same envelope up close – isn’t the striped red and white liner adorable? Perfect timing for Valentine’s Day! /7/ One of the benefits of working with an amazing group of designers is the immaculate desks they keep. Here’s a little vignette from Matt’s desk. /8/ A familiar site – Pantone chips on busy desks as our design team plans out the latest update to our line (How’s that for a teaser? There’s more to come on that subject!).

To wrap up this Friday version of Fine Details from The Fine Print we thought we would share a few links:

~ Just in time for Valentine’s Day: We adore the new LOVE stamp that includes lettering from one of our favorite illustrators, Jessica Hische.

~ We spotted our Auburn place card on one of our favorite daily reads recently, The Ritzy Bee Blog. Maria and Kelly have a way of finding the sweetest details and pairing them perfectly with other gorgeous elements and we were delighted to have one of our designs included in this recent blog post.

~ One of our cherished retailers, Parchment Nantucket, created a very special piece earlier this year that we were honored to design and letterpress print. Heidi shows the final framed piece on their blog.

~ Have you seen our list of Blogging Retailers and Friends? It’s right over here –> You’ll find links like The Ritzy Bee Blog and Parchment Nantucket’s Blog as well as many other great friends of Dauphine Press. Enjoy!