Invitations continued

I say I'm going to post something the next day, and then it takes me over a month to actually do it... Here are some shots of our invites. The quality of these images are not so good. In hindsight, I should have had our photographer get some shots, while we had her in our power.

Folded up, referencing our Save the Dates

In the process of unfolding (I'm trying to give the full experience)

Lots of info for those not inclined to use the internet

Not the most accurate map, but people should really just use the internet.
Grandparents, let that be a lesson to you.

Flip side: the Alphabet poster that took a large chunk of my life to illustrate
The letters G, S, and T are supposed to coordinate with the itinerary on the other side.
Don't know if that was clear.


I do like to design me some icons


Personal stories surrounding the alphabet.

Wedding invite and tourist brochure

RSVP cards -- Rob lobbied to use the phrase "meal of food"

Weeks later, Rob pointed out a typo. My instinct was to get really angry at him, then cry. It was a small misspelling, but it's enough to annoy me for all of eternity.

My intention is to turn this into a more generic poster for Door County and to seek my fortune in the gift shop circuit (that will hopefully cover cost of production). This time, there will be no misspellings.

The Lady and her Gent are photographed

We had our engagement photo session with our photographer, Erin Hanson, on Saturday and she just posted some shots on her blog. We had so much fun! And I was brave enough to wear the feathers, despite getting scathing comments from my brother and Rob beforehand ('It's like you have roadkill on your head,' 'What the hell is that,' etc). Whatever guys; don't question my flair.

One of the favs

Sassiness with the heal kick

Water was cold, cold, cold

Just, you know, dancing in the bay like we always do

Love this one. Rob looks handsome.

I thought Erin was great and I'm so excited to have her take our wedding day pictures.

Bonus: we made the homepage of her site!

Weekly Weird: Fail Blog

I don't know if I'd personally consider Fail Blog 'weird,' but it's in the Webby Awards 'Weird Websites' category and it's certainly entertaining. Three humorous Fail images:

Burglar fail

Car repair fail

Life Choice fail

Speaking of The Webby Awards, The Royal Order's work was nominated in Best Visual Design Aesthetic and Corporate Communications for Patagonia's Tin Shed. Vote!

McGuire Furniture

The Royal Order, in partnership with Gorilla Polymedia, just launched a new site for McGuire Furniture. I thankfully can take a big chunk of credit for this one. The image and media galleries are some of my favorite pets on the site. Shawn Hilgart put these together in Flash and made them work spendidly.

McGuire has some of the most beautiful furniture -- each piece is handcrafted by artisans. Their assets were beautiful as well, which really made our job a piece of cake.

They have this Northern California cool about their designs -- natural, eclectic. In other words, I wouldn't mind winning this Dream Kitchen if I were eligible.

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Christy's Race

Every Memorial Day weekend, my hometown holds the Christy's Race, a 4-mile run that helps raise money for a college scholarship for a track & field athlete. I was a recipient of this back in the day when I was physically able to pole vault and hurdle.

Now that I'm a big girl, I'm able to give back to the race in my own way by designing this year's tshirt. Here were the options:

The Winner; runners forming northeast Wisconsin

Some subtle patriotism for Memorial Day... those are stars

The third option

The Footprint Chronicles

The Royal Order worked with Patagonia to create The Footprint Chronicles, which charts the environmental impact of a rotation of featured clothing from design to delivery. This is all in effort to become more sustainable as a business. Ultimately, Patagonia's clothing will be fully recyclable by 2010.

The project is nominated for a Webby Award in Corporate Communications. Vote!

This is was also mentioned on Dwell Blog and Cool Hunting.

Canadians need upmarket housewares at attainable prices, too

The Royal Order has been working with Crate & Barrel on crateandbarrel.ca to generate interest in careers at the soon-to-arrive Toronto and Calgary stores. The site has just launched and looks awesome. But I wasn't on the project, so I sadly can't take any credit.

Seal V

I recently found out that American Idol has a songwriting competition for the final song and all the royalties. My future brother-in-law wrote an entry, 'Into My Own.' Not only did he write all instrumental parts and the lyrics, but he also performed everything. Really impressive.

It's kind of Seal-esque (which is said as a compliment); I figure Seal is married to Heidi Klum -- who hosts 'Project Runway' -- which is awesome. By the transitive property, Seal is both awesome and fierce. And 13-year-old me liked 'Kiss from a Rose' enough to overcome the association with 'Batman Forever.'

Here is a list of all entries.

Vote for Andrew Diamond on April 10 by signing up on the American Idol Songwriters site.

Note: Seal has had four albums named Seal I, Seal II, and so on. I think Andrew could do better, but it might be funny to steal the name of Seal's eventual comeback album.