Wedding season is here! A great way to personalize your special day is to create your own custom printed wedding invitation package!

With your own design and a variety of size, stock and finishing options, you can create invitations that that are unique to you and your wedding.

We’ve printed packages that include invites, RSVPs as well as direction cards which detail directions to the ceremony and reception. Another trend we’re noticing is that many brides are skipping the store-bought bridal shower invites and thank-you cards and opting to custom print their own personalized designs.

We also have seen many customers avoid envelope costs by getting creative and making their RSVP a self-mailing postcard.

A classic approach to engagement announcements as well as wedding invites is to use an engagement photo as the highlight of the design. Many customers forgo the traditional one-color printing and opt for full color printing, to give their photo a little more color and excitement.

Though we also print many clean, sophisticated, more traditional single-color work if your wedding may call for something more subtle. If your guest list includes out-of-towners, send a save-the-date card to give them a heads up, also include an accommodations card with their invite so they can plan on booking their stay. (Save the date and accommodation cards are great for destination weddings too.) There are a variety of options and routes for personalizing your invites, call us at 877.246.3132 or contact us online for a custom quote on your own unique wedding invitations!

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IndieMerch and Dan Mumford are teaming up to create Mumford Clothing, and they came to Jakprints to produce t-shirts and posters. This video shows a little behind the scenes action of the process behind this new clothing line, which includes a look at t-shirt screen-printing, embroidery and full color printing.

Hailing from central London, artist Dan Mumford has created some of the most viscerally stunning imagery from his work space in Studio 100, a collective group of artists, illustrators, and graphic designers. Armed with a client list that includes musical standouts The Devil Wears Prada, Bring Me The Horizon, and Gallows, Mumford has also tackled major companies such as Nike and Adidas. He is best known for his cover art for “Homesick,” the largely successful album from A Day To Remember, and his extensive t-shirt work for The Black Dahlia Murder.

Mumford Clothing is a collaboration between Dan Mumford and IndieMerch, the first Series, ‘The Heretic’, a tale of the occult told through the medium of tee’s, will release on the 15th of May 2010. (available at indiemerchstore)

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The blog Quality in Print has posted an excellent article on JPEG compression, how it works and what settings should be used to ensure that artifacts in your images are kept to a minimum.  If you haven’t heard of them, be sure to browse the other posts, they are full of great information for anyone interested in the offset printing process.

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Recently, we printed a full color children’s book and promotional materials for internationally admired harpist, Yolanda Kondonassis (pictured above with her daughter). She is founder and director of Earth at Heart, a nonprofit organization that teaches Earth literacy through the arts.

Her new book, “Our House Is Round: A Kid’s Book About Why Protecting the Earth Matters” came to life as a result of Kondonassis’ search for information about the environment for the youth side of her organization. On a flight home from Seattle, where she had played a concert, the harpist had a conceptual brainstorm: Use the image of a house to make the message clear. “When we pollute the Earth, it’s the same thing as polluting our living room and bathroom and kitchen and every place we live,” Kondonassis said.

As a first-time author, Kondonassis called the Cleveland Institute of Art and asked teachers there to recommend a student who might be willing to create line drawings for the book. The institute connected Kondonassis with senior Daphne Knox who set out to emulate favorite children’s illustrators, including Ludwig Bemelmans (“Madeline” ) and Eric Carle (“The Very Hungry Caterpillar”). Knox commented that the illustrations “are kid-friendly, but with sophisticated use of paint and color and meant to inspire kids to be more interested in art later in life.”

Yolanda will appear at free signing/reading events:
Friday, May 7 at 6 p.m. at Visible Voice Books
Saturday, May 8 at 11 a.m. at Borders, 2010 Richmond Road, Beachwood OH
Saturday, May 15 at 11 a.m. at the Learned Owl Book Shop

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Katie Spotz, the youngest person to successfully complete a solo row across the Atlantic Ocean, sent us her thanks after completing her goal. Along with bringing awareness for safe drinking water, Katie’s row also raised enough funds to provide a lifetime of safe drinking water for 3,000 people.

Jakprints produced and applied the vinyl decals for the boat (pictured above in the Jakprints parking lot before Katie’s voyage) which Katie rowed 2,817 miles across the ocean. “Dan & Everyone at Jakprints,” Katie writes, “Thanks so much for believeing in me and for making my boat beautiful!” Congrats again Katie, Jakprints is happy to have been involved in your amazing Row For Water for such a great cause.

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