I recently completed a commission for my friends' wedding! But if you didn't already know, customising a wedding invite can be more complicated than it looks. And you bet, it certainly wasn't a bed of roses! (Moreover, it was my first attempt at designing a wedding invite.)
And that's exactly what this post is all about.
If you are interested in creating something like this and would love to learn how to get started, I've broken down my experiences into 5 simple parts for you to try it out for yourself!
Step 1. Understanding the Specifications
Before starting, the specifications from the wedding couple were:
Give off a rustic aesthetic feel,
Guide guests from the train station to the wedding venue, Monti, and
Feature some notable landmarks on the map (i.e. Merlion, Fullerton Bay).
Alright now, where do I start.
Step 2. Conceptualising the Map
I started looking at Google Maps to ensure the accuracy of each landmark's location.
There is the wedding venue, Monti At 1-Pavilion, and a few landmarks worth noting in the map such as Raffles MRT, the Merlion, Anderson Bridge.
And, this is how my first AND second draft looked like:
Quite clearly, I was going for the cutesy feel. There was the simple and cute Merlion, water taxi, Fullerton Hotel, and then the island of the Ring to represent the wedding venue. But wait, something still seems off. The wedding venue doesn't have an illustration of its own yet, Fullerton Hotel, another very popular wedding venue had one. This might be confusing for people.
Step 3. Putting Brush to Paper (And I hit a Roadblock)
(Paper woes ugh!)
To top it off, there was the problem with paper too. While I've been using the same watercolour paper for my wildlife work, I seldom do landscapes which require more water.
I started with a wet-on-wet (as I usually do for painting skies). First mistake. I'm not too sure if it's my technique or the paper quality but they started having goosebumps! Yikes.
Make sure you use quality watercolour paper and have enough paint in your brush!
Step 4. Re-conceptualising: Going back to the drawing board
And then, I also realised that cutesy illustrations were not the way to go.
If my theme was more modern for the front, its back had to match the theme. (It might seem so obvious to you now but, trust me, often when you have been working on something for quite awhile, you don't spot these)
So I started looking at Singapore vintage maps and paid attention to the feel which they give:
What gives the map its vintage feel?
Serif font for the names of the landmark,
Lightly faded colour tone,
The particular way which roads and coasts were drawn.
And that's what I tried to replicate in my map.
Step 5. Draw attention to the Wedding Venue
The fun part of creating an illustrated map is that it doesn't have to be drawn to scale! So take the liberty to use size to emphasise the relevance of a certain venue -- like how I did it for Monti, the wedding venue here. Moreover, including an illustration of the venue gives a rough idea of what to expect.
I also adapted the Google location pin to create a wedding pin (see what I did there??) It's supposed to be like how a digital image normally expands when you hover your computer mouse over!
Also, the coasts look different because I decided to simplify the map in the second version. The reason being, I didn't think the exact coast outline of Fullerton Bay was that relevant to guests in this case.
Conclusion
To be honest, I expect my art form to develop from the one I have today. I have to admit, it's not perfect to me (but really, can anything be??), but I really like it the way it is now.
If you made it to the end, thank you for staying with me. You are an awesome audience and a good reader. In my next post, I will be sharing more of the things that soon-to-be couples need to consider when customising their wedding invites.
Ciao!
P.s. If this post was useful to you in any way, let me know - send me a photo or tag me on Instagram! I always love to see the works of fellow artists :)
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