Josh & Alyssa’s Album Cover Wedding Invitation

Josh & Alyssa Album Cover Wedding Invitation

Back in November, when I posted the finished “Save the Date” postcard that Alyssa and I put together for our upcoming wedding, we still had not fully fleshed out the concept behind our actual invitation. But we did know a few things. It needed to be unusual, it need to reflect who we are, and it needed to complement (and hopefully surpass) the postcard. It would require an extraordinary amount of thought and effort behind it.

When we came up with the idea of the “gig poster”-as-save-the-date, we’d tossed around the idea of making the entire invitation set feel like music ephemera; LPs, fan club documents, badges, etc. The idea of a gatefold LP album cover felt like a natural choice for the invitation. But the size would be an issue, as we weren’t planning on mailing 12″ by 12″ envelopes. So we went with a half scale; 6″ square, folded, instead of 12″.

Josh & Alyssa Album Cover Wedding Invitation

LP covers inspiration collage

The design of the front cover came first. We were inspired by albums designed mostly in the 1950s through early ’60s, especially “floating head” style covers. I pored obsessively over the typography for weeks, but in a single marathon post-midnight photography session, we finally had the perfect cover portrait. Most of my experience is in panoramic photography and object photography, so I was initially intimidated by the notion of trying to pull off convincing  mid-century portrait photography. We pretty much made it up as we went along. Working with a black sweatshirt as our backdrop, we used a small clamp light as our key light on the left, and, next to her face, Alyssa held up an adorable battery operated blue LED nightlight that we got at IKEA. I would set the timed shutter release, and then run back behind Alyssa, and crouch to get my head in the right position. It took a few tries to get the positioning right, but with the proper underexposure, we were able to achieve the half-lit Robert Freeman cover portrait look with plenty of negative space for copy. But by themselves, our floating heads weren’t enough to fill the cover with color. So I took another shot of our lighting setup—sans Alyssa and me—deliberately out of focus. That gave us a great colorful bokeh effect that we would overlay on top of our portraits to produce the final effect. To simulate the “big foreground portrait, small background portrait” effect, we photographed a vintage caketopper in similar lighting conditions, and overlayed that image into some of the negative space in Photoshop. Voilà.

For me, a great deal of the fun was coming up with the tiny details, like the logos and markings that help to sell the piece as an album cover. Playing off of the “Glorious Dino Vision” joke from the save-the-date postcard, I added a Dino Spectrum logo. Then we came up with the fake “Syntony” record label, based on the defunct Harmony sub-label of Columbia Records. I’m constantly tickled by the over-the-top “STEREO” announcements on old album covers, so that was front and center.

Originally we had designed the “hits” sticker to be placed on the cover design in Photoshop, with a pretty convincing bevel/drop shadow/texture to simulate the look of a real sticker. But we found the exact same size/shape sticker available in pre-cut label sheets, which we printed on ourselves and applied individually to every invitation for an extra touch of detail.

Josh & Alyssa Album Cover Wedding Invitation back side

The reverse side of the “sleeve” is an amalgam of early-to-mid-1960s album backs. The two biggest immediate influences were the back side of The Beatles’ Revolver, and a Laurie Johnson LP. Along with space-filling and semi-informative copy, there are plenty of in jokes and puns to keep recipients entertained, like a track listing that corresponds half-heartedly to the timeline of the ceremony and reception. The most fun I had was with the three fictional “you might also like” thumbnail album covers at the bottom: “In Exotic Hawaii,” “Polka Frenzy!” and my favorite of all, “Moon Farm.”

Like the front side, the back side shows plenty of faux wear and tear, including the unmistakable circular “ring wear” impression of an old LP; I’m particularly proud of that effect. In order to make it as realistic as possible, I photographed my copy of The Beatles (the White Album), and after some Photoshop witchcraft, applied its authentic patina to the design.

Josh & Alyssa Album Cover Wedding Invitation gatefold inside spread

Alyssa Zukas' RSVP à la Rubber Soul

Alyssa's original "RSVP" sketch, à la Rubber Soul.

We tackled the gatefold inside spread last, chronologically. For the left panel, I included a sort of figure-8-mitosis-space-helmet composition based on two other photos taken during the same marathon session as the cover shot. To us, this spread was really the meat and potatoes; it had to actually function as an invitation, so we tried to make the more important content somewhat legible and obvious. Along with the right panel’s whimsical nonsense text, we placed the RSVP details inside a montage quoted almost verbatim from the back side of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. Alyssa did some fantastic hand-lettering for the “RSVP” logo. Some of the photography came from the midnight shoot, some from our older files, and a few by our good friend Sakura Koontz. The finishing touch was the highly embarrassing shot of me-as-George-Harrison-as-cowboy.

Josh & Alyssa Bus Pass Reply Card

Alyssa Zukas RSVP card design sketch

Alyssa's original reply card sketch.

With the invitation itself complete, the reply card was our next challenge. We were originally thinking “backstage pass” or something more music-related, but Alyssa had recently found some gorgeous little vintage Cleveland bus passes on eBay. We loved the look of them, and based on the look of the bus passes, Alyssa hand sketched the design before we created the vector art on the computer. She also had the brilliant idea to make use of the “№” (numero sign) for the “No” checkbox.

French Paper Pop Tone Sour Apple Square Envelope, hand block printed by Alyssa Zukas

To wrap everything up, literally and figuratively, we bought a supply of French Paper’s Pop-Tone envelopes in Sour Apple green. Alyssa created a “Handle with Care” linoleum block and hand printed each envelope with a metallic white ink.

I Love the Future Korwins badge sticker

1960s vintage I Love the Beatles badge pin

"I Love the Beatles" badge

As a bonus, we threw in “I Love the Future Korwins” stickers, hand lettered, cut, and block printed by Alyssa. I love the Ed Benguiat style interlock lettering along with the couldn’t-do-this-with-a-font F+T+K ligature. The concept and colors are based on an “I Love the Beatles” pin from the ’60s.

This may be the most fun I’ve ever had on any design project… ever. For good measure, here are some additional close-ups and detail shots.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

30 Responses to “Josh & Alyssa’s Album Cover Wedding Invitation”

  1. Zennia June 3, 2010 at 4:54 pm #

    This is brilliant…I thought I made this up myself (you beat me to it!)and came across your blog while looking for someone who could create them . Great minds think alike. I’m so impressed.

  2. Zennia June 3, 2010 at 4:55 pm #

    Congrats btw!

  3. Album Cover June 5, 2010 at 8:58 pm #

    Unique and interesting, unique invitation cover, I liked it, wedding invitations by using a multimedia cd, very different from other invitations

  4. neurosenthal June 9, 2010 at 3:40 am #

    love it. if i should get married anytime, I want you to create the wedding invitation 🙂

  5. Mini June 9, 2010 at 1:05 pm #

    AWESOME!!!

  6. Jason Adam June 14, 2010 at 8:28 am #

    You’ve made this Beatles fan/graphic designer’s day. Just effin’ awesome!

  7. R June 23, 2010 at 9:14 am #

    This is awesome. Can you estimate the cost for getting the invitations printed?

  8. Josh Korwin June 23, 2010 at 10:21 am #

    Thank you! I’d say the production costs were somewhere around $550, but it’s hard to estimate accurately because some of the supplies were things we already had on hand.

  9. The LawTunes July 7, 2010 at 10:25 am #

    Just came across this spectacular page as we plan a ’60’s cover layout for our next release. What a great idea! Masterfully done. And, god (and you both) willing, before too long perhaps you will begin releasing a series of “singles” arising from the album! Best wishes from The LawTunes.

  10. Anastasia July 29, 2010 at 12:19 pm #

    Hi Guys! Congrats on you wedding, beautiful job on the stationary. I was wondering about how you got them printed, what paper did you use and what printing process, was it letterpress? I love the texture and the colors.
    Waiting for you response.
    Thank you

  11. Josh Korwin July 30, 2010 at 7:37 am #

    Thanks very much, Anastasia! There’s a fantastic blog about print design, For Print Only, that covered our invitations and posted some of the technical details as well. While we didn’t use letterpress, we did use a somewhat similar process, linocut block printing, to do the “Handle with Care” envelopes and the “I Love the Future Korwins” stickers. The remaining items were printed digitally.

  12. Matt P September 16, 2010 at 5:15 pm #

    This is absolutely beautiful. I wish I had the time and talent to do something like this for Cassie and I.

  13. Mary March 7, 2013 at 9:27 am #

    Totally love, love, LOVE these. Absolutely gorgeous. My fiance and I are getting married next year and are thinking record label-look invites are the way to go. We passed on a DJ and instead bought a jukebox which will be rockin’ the reception, so something along these lines would fit in perfectly!

    Your design is spot-on perfect. As a graphic designer, you’ve inspired me with all the tiny details, and I’m SO excited to start motoring on my own invites!

  14. Josh Korwin March 12, 2013 at 10:55 am #

    Thanks, Mary! Congratulations and good luck with your invitations!

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Tweets that mention Josh & Alyssa’s Album Cover Wedding Invitation | three steps ahead — perspectives -- Topsy.com - June 3, 2010

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Birchcraft Studios, Josh Korwin. Josh Korwin said: New post: Josh & Alyssa's Album Cover Wedding Invitation http://bit.ly/cA7pwf […]

  2. Josh and Alyssa’s Album Cover Wedding Invite | Alyssa Zukas - June 5, 2010

    […] Our wedding invites are finally done and up online! Wanna know how we did it? Check out the entire “revealing” post here on Josh’s site! […]

  3. Josh & Alyssa Wedding “Save the Date” Postcard | three steps ahead — perspectives - June 9, 2010

    […] in some months from now to see what we do with our invitation!1 It’s done, see it here! […]

  4. And now for the invites… « Amazing Events at NHMLA - June 15, 2010

    […] the details justice here. I highly recommend you take a look at the post on Josh’s blog at https://blog.threestepsahead.com/casestudies/josh-alyssas-album-cover-wedding-invitation/ . There is a photo slide show at the bottom where you can get an up close look at all the little […]

  5. Vinyl nostalgia « Sketches + Scribbles - July 16, 2010

    […] For Print Only had these phenomenal retro invites by Alyssa and Josh.  They are perfect down to every last detail – seriously, these invites would not be out of […]

  6. Alyssa + Josh’s Album Cover Wedding Invite « this reminds me of you - July 18, 2010

    […] via Alyssa Zukas and Josh Korwin […]

  7. The Invitations and Save-The-Date - July 18, 2010

    […] blog, but just for redundancy’s sake, here they are. Click the images to read more about the wedding invitation and the save-the-date postcard. Alyssa & Josh's Wedding Save the Date Gig Poster Postcard […]

  8. Josh + Alyssa’s Album Cover Wedding Invitations - July 19, 2010

    […] incredibly unique wedding invitations for and by Alyssa Zukas and Joshua Korwn  (aka, The Future Korwins) make me smile and wish that I […]

  9. 2011 Wedding Invitation Trends : Style and Inspiration | Invitation Crush - December 22, 2010

    […] Bella Figura; Preppie wedding invitations from Dizzy Wizzy; Emily + Dan’s Retro Teal and Red invitations by Erin Jang; Album Cover Invitations by Alyssa Zukas and Joshua Korwin; Mid-Century […]

  10. Three Steps Ahead featured in Best of FPO 2010 | three steps ahead — perspectives - December 22, 2010

    […] just found out from a fellow Kernie that our wedding invitations were chosen as being among the top twenty four FPO (For Print Only) entries of […]

  11. Finch Paper Interviews Three Steps Ahead’s Josh Korwin | three steps ahead — perspectives - January 3, 2011

    […] flattered to have been interviewed by Finch Paper about our wedding invitation design (which was printed on Finch) and about my career as a designer. Read the full interview […]

  12. Ideas: Vintage Record Invite | Wedding Tweets - January 13, 2011

    […] Finally, don’t forget to check out a really cool work of art by Josh from ThreeStepsAhead. […]

  13. “Petty” » Before – Invitations - June 17, 2011

    […] some people do, and sadly we aren’t able to come up with something as amazingly brilliant as this “album cover” concept, but we did want something nice to send to […]

  14. Letterpress wedding invitation vintage wood type poster for Lisa & Marty | three steps ahead — perspectives - August 22, 2011

    […] to discuss options for producing a set of creative, limited-run wedding invitations. She had seen the invitations that Alyssa and I had done for our own wedding and was inspired to do something similar. Now that we had our connection to the International […]

  15. Three Steps Ahead featured in IdN Magazine | three steps ahead — perspectives - March 7, 2012

    […] issue, devoted to creative invitation design around the world. The article’s focus is on our “Married at the Museum” wedding invitation design, and contains a bonus interview with yours […]

  16. Three Steps Ahead Print Series for Etsy | three steps ahead — perspectives - January 13, 2013

    […] has always been a gigantic source of inspiration for me as a graphic designer (see my wedding invitations, for example), and I’m proud to introduce the first specimens in a series of audiophile prints exclusively […]

Leave a Reply