Three Unique Design Styles for Custom Invitations

Today's designers often relish opportunities to showcase their Photoshop or Illustrator prowess, but you can craft some amazing custom invitations by tapping into ancient art forms for unique design styles that demonstrate your ability to think outside the box. Many design students enter the field with a keen interest and talent in hand-crafted artwork already deeply ingrained, so you can easily continue fostering your passion with custom invitations. All you have to do is create your artwork on your chosen medium, scan it into your computer, and send it off to your printer to get amazing custom invitations that will knock your customers' socks off. Here are three unique design styles you might want to consider for custom invitations.

1. Pencil drawings

Grab the graphite or charcoal and get to work creating a finely detailed and shaded pencil drawing to use as your custom invitation design. From da Vinci to Degas, the art of the sketch has been a marvel for the ages, and such an artistic treatment applied to a human portrait, nature close-up or other scene can give your custom invitations just the edge they need to elegantly capture attention.

2. Hand paintings

Prints of paintings aren't new to the world of custom invitations. You've undoubtedly seen invitations that feature the works of artists such as Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade, but prints of your paintings have probably never graced the front of a single invitation. It's time to change that by introducing your amazing artwork on custom invitations, whether you're a serious oil painter or you simply dabble in watercolors.

3. Calligraphy

As ancient art forms go, it's hard to top calligraphy. Calligraphy is more than artistic, hand-drawn text; the fine nuances in lines, sizes and shapes denote meaning that transcends what the actual text dictates. You can do the same on custom invitations. Calligraphy is often employed for custom wedding invitations, but you can become a calligrapher for just about any kind of invitation you're hired to design. There are many different calligraphic styles, and if you're not familiar with them you can order calligraphy kits that will help you develop this fine art skill so you can put it to use for profitability. The last critical step in designing custom creations from your hand-crafted artwork is to have them printed with premium inks on professional paper. The quality of your printer's ink, paper and finishing methods have a lot to do with the aesthetics of your completed piece. A matte paper, for example, will enrich your colors with deep hues; while a glossy paper will help your artwork pop of the paper with brilliance and light.