Design
Stars Above Baby Shower
by Anne Kostecki
I had the lovely opportunity to design a baby shower invitation hosted by my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and her aunt for my own baby. The event would be held at her aunt's home, and they wanted to have a celestial, sweet lullaby theme for the shower. The colors they chose were soft pinks, white, and gold. My mother-in-law wanted to include a poem on the invitation, which I decided to hand letter.
I started with the hand lettering process for the poem: originally it had been longer, but I shortened it so that it would fit in the space allowed and had the right number of words and syllables to balance the composition. It took a significant time to achieve evenly sized letters, then trace it digitally in Adobe Illustrator. Next I painted the background in watercolor: at first it was very light and pink, but I added more layers of color and darkened a few spots with Ultramarine Blue to make a deeper purple color. I wanted the texture to look like a pink evening sky, with clouds of space dust and nebulae. I added stars, a moon and a planet shape, while selectively adding a gold foil photo to the larger shapes.
The remaining text was set in Vista Sans Medium and Vista Slab Medium and Italic. The invitation was printed digitally on white #110 cardstock. I paired it with a white Euro-flap envelope with magenta calligraphy.
