Introducing Glitch, a capsule collection celebrating the imperfect, from the Paperless Post Design Studio
The true nature of a medium is often exposed in its flaws—the half-tones of an offset print, the striations in an old video, or the pixelated artifacts of a digital image. To celebrate the aesthetics of imperfection, the Paperless Post Design Studio has created an editorial capsule collection that draws on the idea of deliberate errors. Glitch is made up of twelve unique invitations that lean into the notion of creative destruction in order to find beauty in modern life’s so-called mistakes.
Using everyday objects like neon tube lights and balloons and then distorting and discoloring the photographic assets, our designers created moody aesthetics reminiscent of television static and double vision. Bright neons were muted down into a palette of moody pastels to add yet another layer of idiosyncrasy.
Glitch marries the super-modern with the psychedelic and is ideal for creating a mystique around your event without giving too much away. Appropriately, these invitations can be adapted for any occasion that’s chic and boldly different, but we especially like them for cocktail hours, birthdays, and wedding save the dates for couples that aren’t afraid to embrace the imperfect.
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Browse the Glitch collection and design a custom invitation for your next event at paperlesspost.com.
Behind the scenes of Bloom Room, a pop-up shop celebrating Rifle Paper Co. for Paperless Post
Since launching Rifle Paper Co. with her husband Nathan in 2009, Anna’s become the the darling of the stationery (and iPhone case) world. Now, her signature paintings of flora, fauna, and doll-faced figures have been reimagined as an exclusive collection of invitations and cards for Paperless Post. The extensive selection includes birthday invitations, birth announcements, holiday cards, and—for the first time ever—easily customizable Rifle Paper Co. wedding suites.
To celebrate this momentous partnership, we created the Bloom Room, a four-day pop-up overflowing with flowers, real and fake. We built the shop in just 24 hours and opened the night of the collection’s launch to a line of Anna’s fans that ran halfway down the block.
Step 1: The Wall.
We knew we wanted to make use of Rifle’s beautiful wallpaper, but wallpapering a temporary space meant building a fake wall in front of the actual wall. What started as a pristine, tranquil space quickly turned into a cloud of sawdust filled with the screeching of circle saws and sanders.
Step 2: Flowers.
Our friends Alex and Sophie made us gorgeous giant crepe-paper flowers that stood between 3’ and 10’ tall. The installation process felt a bit like drinking that suspicious potion from “Alice in Wonderland.”
Step 3: More Flowers.
We called on one of our favorite florists to supply an abundance of blooms in pinks, corals, and whites and plenty of Silver Dollar eucalyptus. People started poking their heads into the shop to tell us they could smell the flowers from down the block.
Step 4: The Cards.
We built 12’-long ledges to display the customizable collection. We were able to include just over 80 designs, which wasn’t even half of the collection. (Note how dark it's gotten outside! We're nearing the end of our second night.)
Step 5: The End.
Our little shop cleaned up pretty nicely, if we do say so ourselves.
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See the exlusive Rifle Paper Co. for Paperless Post collection at paperlesspost.com.
Pictured in opening photo: James Hirschfeld, CEO, Paperless Post, and Anna Bond.
Connected by Pattern: A bold, monochromatic collection and London Design Festival installation
It’s not so bad to see everything in black and white, after all. We’ve teamed up with UK design studio PATTERNITY to create a collection of invitations and an immersive installation for the London Design Festival that dive deep into the world of the monochromatic.
Invitations anticipate some of life’s most memorable moments—parties, of course—and with collaboration’s eleven designs we wanted to capture the experience of connecting with people at events. Names like Converge, Explore, Disrupt, and Bond hint at the real-life interactions that inspired the bold, graphic patterns designer especially for this collection.
And what better way to celebrate such a striking collection than with an actual space for people to connect and play? “Connected by Pattern,” the interactive installation we’ve built for the London Design Festival, allows you to experience our bold new collection in three dimensions. Covered floor-to-ceiling in pattern, our Somerset House exhibit transports you to the fantasy party we had in mind when designing these invitations.
(If you can’t make it, the Instagram tags of the room are a passable consolation.)
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Connected by Pattern is on view at Somerset House in London from 21–27 October. PATTERNITY for Paperless Post is available online and on paper on paperlesspost.com.
We love knowing when users find an invitation that perfectly matches their party theme, but we must admit it’s even more exciting when users fall in love with an invitation first and design their entire event around it. We get to see plenty of examples of both—in fact, we recently posted about one particularly beautiful third birthday party—but we just had to share two striking examples of baby shower invitations that were brought to life in a delicious way.
Our Paris-based design partner Little Cube has a warm, natural vibe with designs depicting whimsical floral and animal themes. Making the most of the designer’s Foxy’s Forest Party invitation, cookie-artist Sweet Kiera adapted its playful illustrations into an adorable set of frosted fox cubs and forest-embellished onesies.
Petit Collage, another of our kid-minded design partners, is all about vibrant colors, geometric patterns, and baby animals. San Francisco’s Pretty Please bakery created a fun homage to Whale Baby, a darling Petit Collage invitation featuring creatures of the sea. We love seeing this card expanded into three dimensions, morphing the whales and fish into fondant figures around an intricately designed wood pattern that mimics the invitations’ wooden background.
While hosts today tend to be fairly lenient about guests’ party attire, you’re still likely to run into traditional dress code terms on wedding invitations that leave you puzzling over what you’re meant to wear (what is “morning dress,” exactly?). As with most traditions, standards of dress have morphed dramatically over time—there was once an age when all women were expected to wear gloves to events and all men hats, an age when business suits were considered so casual they fell into a class of fashion called undress. Even today, people have differing notions of how best to meet formal dress codes, but there are some basic ground rules that are good to know for the next time you get a fancy cocktail party invitation or a save the date to a formal wedding.
White Tie
White tie is the most formal dress code in Western fashion. Men are expected to wear a black tailcoat, trousers, shoes, and socks; white wing-collared shirt, vest, and bow tie; studs, cufflinks, suspenders, and, if you really want to go wild, a boutonniere. There are no color requirements for women, any old floor-length evening or ball gown will do—long gloves optional. Morning dress is a variation of white tie for events before 6 p.m.; men wear a modified tailcoat called a morning coat, and striped trousers in a muted color, while women may venture slightly shorter with their dresses. (Oh là là!)
Black Tie
Black tie is slightly less rigid, yet amply swanky. For men, black tie calls for a tuxedo jacket (rather than a tailcoat), black bow tie (rather than white), and the option of black vest or cummerbund. Women may opt for a dressy cocktail dress over a full-length gown. The pre-evening variant for black tie is called stroller and replaces the man’s tux jacket with a lounge coat and the bow tie with a necktie. If an invitation references creative black tie, don’t let your mind run away with you; men can choose an unconventional color for their shirt or accessories.
Semiformal
At the lower end of the fancy scale is semiformal dress (considered informal in traditional parlance). Men need only wear a business suit, dress shirt, and tie; women can wear a short afternoon or cocktail dress or dressy separates.
Whatever the occasion or time of day, it’s always best to respect the dress code requests of the host who sent the invitation. You wouldn’t want to be caught at a formal dinner party in a purple cummerbund when everyone else is in hats and tails.
These days we tend to associate the term RSVP with Facebook, where “yes” means “maybe,” “maybe” means “no,” and “no” means “How do I know you, again?” But there was once a time—before you could invite 500 of your closest friends to a party with a single click—when an RSVP held significant social weight. If you received a dinner party invitation that had those four letters printed neatly at the bottom of the card, failing to reply was at your own social peril.
The History of the RSVP
R.S.V.P. is an abbreviation of the phrase répondez s’il vous plaît, or "reply, if it pleases you" (colloquially understood by the French as an imperative, not an option). As with so many other French figures of speech, it was imported into English in the 1800s by socialites and social climbers in their eternal pursuit of classiness. Its use quickly became de rigueur; etiquette maven Emily Post was so adamant about its importance that she gave her opinion on how to capitalize and punctuate it: “Capitals ‘R.S.V.P.’ are permissible; but fastidious people prefer ‘R.s.v.p.’” Rightly noted, Ms. Post!
Modern RSVP Etiquette
In today’s world of lax decorum, an RSVP might not earn the respect it used to, but don’t let s’il vous plaît fool you: good manners still require a reply. Any time you are invited to any event, whether it’s a formal wedding invitation or a casual birthday party invitation, that instructs you to RSVP, be sure to call, write, email, or respond on Paperless Post to let the host know if you’re attending or not. If “regrets only” is added, tell the host if you can’t make it—otherwise, you are expected to attend.
Obviously this all can get a bit confusing for both host and guests, so it’s good to be prepared. A save the date is a great way to give guests a heads-up to keep their calendar clear for important events like weddings, anniversary parties, or milestone birthdays.
Fresh from Portland: Egg Press for Paperless Post! Known for its adorable, handcrafted details, the indie stationer has created a collection of online and paper invitations and photo cards perfect for your inner Portlander. (There are, of course, a few invitations to help you put a bird on your next event.)
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Design a custom Egg Press invitation or photo card on paperlesspost.com.
