The latest suite in our Sneak Peek Series has a fun and unique history. Our Yountville suite was inspired by a board created by one of our favorite bloggers — Kathryn at Snippet & Ink. Initially we fell in love with the colors and preppy style of the board. We found ourselves coming back to it over and over after having it pinned up on the wall in our design studio. She really did nail it! Finally we decided that it was the perfect jumping off point for a full letterpress wedding suite and Yountville was born.

Inspiration board created by Snippet & Ink! (please visit original post for credits)

For more sneak peeks into our new Custom Wedding Portfolio II – Don’t forget to follow us on twitter and click the “like” button on our Facebook page.

It was a warm and sunny weekend here in the bay area and we found ourselves daydreaming about seaside weddings. Below you will find a sneak peek of our Sausalito design. The suite includes a new textured background map that can be personalized for any location. We can’t wait to see some of the customizations!

INSPIRATION BOARD CREDITS: Bride by boat via 100 Layer Cake| Polaroids via Green Wedding Shoes | Striped Straws via Sweet Emilia Jane | Hanging Globes – Anthro Display via The Thinking Tank | Girl in stripes via Give Me Glam | Lighthouse | Stamps via 100 Layer Cake | Glasses by Anthropologie| Postcards & Sunglasses via Oh Lovely Day| Bride on suitcases bu Bonnie Friday | Sailboats via The Uptown Bride.

For more sneak peeks into our new Custom Wedding Portfolio II – Don’t forget to follow us on twitter and click the “like” button on our Facebook page. It doesn’t hurt that just by being our friend you will be entered to win a set of foil notebooks! we will be doing 3 more fan drawings (each Wednesday through 5/11). Stay tuned!

We have been seeing some great coverage in our favorite magazines lately. This week we heard from Today’s Bride that one of our timeless designs was featured in their 2011 issue.

Our design team created an invitation suite for the bride and groom that has become a best seller over the years. Larisa and Carl were married in 2007 and asked us to create a suite with a “world traveler” feel. We created an invitation design using a vintage world map as the background, whimsical touches including a head-on airplane motif and traditional wording on an untraditional horizontal card.

To top it off, we created a passport menu for their reception, which inspired their cake design.

Wedding photos by Kristian Iskandar, KI Photography, Santa Clara, CA

Cake by Susan Morgan, Elegant Cheesecakes, Half Moon Bay, CA

Every autumn, just as wedding season begins to ebb, we perpetually work on a very interesting project that stretches our creativity well beyond
graphic design and printing. Our wonderful client, Graphic Communications, came to us many years ago to commission a unique letterpress calendar as a year-end gift to their clients. Each page of the calendar includes three months, but with every passing month, the user changes the page so that they are always looking at the current month plus the two ahead. So instead of designing a simple twelve months, we design each month three times with no repetition of artwork or themes.

We collaborate with Graphic Communications each year on a new theme which often includes a liberal sprinkling of literary pith. For the 2009
calendar however, we all stepped down from our lofty laurels to create a Hollywood theme, replete with 36 caricatures of famous actors ranging from Woody Allen to Julia Roberts. Each head shot was illustrated by the brilliant Antony Hare. Then character was painstakingly separated and rendered into two to three spot colors by Dauphine Press designers Katrina McHugh and Heather Landry.

On the 2010 calendar, we decided upon cities of the world as our global theme. As in years past, the idea became a collaboration with several of us searching for 36 perfect quotes and images to weave through the calendar. I was thinking along the lines of New York, London, Paris and other obvious metros, but our well-traveled client had more off-the-beaten-path locales in mind. “How about Bogata and Damascus? Tripoli and Kiev?” The challenge then was to research and find stock images that were evocative of these more obscure destinations. The theme quickly evolved into a vintage travelogue which we think fit the project beautifully. Heather Landry continued the design with a beautiful airmail themed cover page that included vintage postage stamps from various countries. She also designed two vintage travel postcards that were included with each calendar to allow recipients the opportunity to voyage vicariously to these exotic destinations.

For years, brides have sought out Dauphine Press for letterpress invitations and announcements to their destination weddings and events. Several years ago, a particular invitation to a Nantucket wedding incorporated a custom map of the island. The map was printed in a pale celadon in the background with darker type overprinting the image. That single design has gone on to inspire countless others.

Several other map invitations may be previewed in our Design Gallery. If there is a destination you have in mind for your event, please check with us as we may likely have an existing map in our library.

Here are several that we felt were noteworthy. Bon voyage!