1920’s and Art Deco Wedding Stationery

Recently I wrote a bit about Art Deco and the 1920s, hope­fully illus­trat­ing why I like the style of the period.  But why is this rel­e­vant to wed­dings today?  Although quite pop­u­lar at the moment it’s a style you can use through­out the day to make your wed­ding a lit­tle bit unique from oth­ers which you may have been to. Also it’s not a strong theme such as demand­ing every­one dress up as Superheroes.

Art Deco styling can eas­ily be reflected in small touches in items like flow­ers, jew­ellery and sta­tionery.  Many col­lec­tions fea­ture 1920s, 1930s and Art Deco inspired dresses.   Design­ers like Jenny Pack­ham, Sassi Hol­ford and Yolan Cris all have dresses that either are based on 20s style designs or use ele­ments in them which are very evoca­tive of the time and its style of design.  I think the style can be quite opu­lent in look.  It is a bit of an anti­dote to the preva­lence of the dis­tressed, shabby chic, make do and mend influ­ences which have been strong for the last few years while still being a ‘vin­tage’ theme.

Art Deco Wed­ding Invi­ta­tions and Sta­tionery Design

From a sta­tionery per­spec­tive it’s very easy to make sim­ple sta­tionery with the look and style of the period, this is due to numer­ous fonts which I think look very inter­est­ing.  Many of them are also rel­a­tively easy to read.  These include the likes of Broad­way Engraved BD, Parisian BT, PlazaDReg and Bern­hard­Fash­ion BT.  Fonts like Eccen­tric Std and Har­ring­ton some­what bridge Art Nou­veau and Art Deco by being a bit more curvy but still feel­ing of the period.

1920’s and Art Deco Fonts — by Nathan from Artemis Stationery

If you’re mak­ing sta­tionery your­self, art deco fonts are very styl­ish so you can base your design on the words and the fonts and there will be enough inter­est if you lay it out well. From the point of view of colours really any­thing goes, though black and gold are two which work very well together.  But it’s not a style to limit itself to a small color palette.

Exam­ples from Artemis Stationery

At Artemis Sta­tionery I have numer­ous designs that work well with 1920s or Art Deco styling. All of the sta­tionery by Artemis Sta­tionery is handmade.

Bespoke Wed­ding Sta­tionery Collections

Bologna

Bologna is very Art Deco although I have used a few flow­ers to slightly soften the style in the fore­ground.  It’s inspired by some of the designs in the lobby of the Chrysler Build­ing in New York and other archi­tec­tural fea­tures from New York. Here we have shown an A5 invi­ta­tion mounted in black and ivory as well as a blue place name.

New York inspired Art Deci Bologna A5 Invi­ta­tion mounted in black and Ivory

Bologna art deco style place name

See more New York style Art Deco wed­ding sta­tionery.

Capri

Capri is very Art Deco influ­enced, espe­cially if you look care­fully at the design which uses a lot of sym­me­try and 1920s inspired design ele­ments.  Used with Swarovski crys­tals it can also look very glam­orous and reflect both the design and the glam­our of the age.

Capri can work well with script fonts but for the full Art Deco effect PlazaDReg should be cho­sen, while Eccen­tric Std also works and gives it a period and lit­tle bit more of a nat­ural feel.  Shown here are a sign and card invi­ta­tion in a pas­tel blue.  The fea­ture font use is PlazaDReg.  Then there is a book­let invi­ta­tion using Reis­ling, I like this font as it has a lot of straight lines com­pli­mented and con­trasted by a few flour­ish­ing curves.  The last image of Capri is a menu in three lan­guages that used Eccen­tric std.

Capri Art Deco wed­ding sign and invi­ta­tion with swarovski crystals

Capri Art Deco wed­ding invi­ta­tion booklet

Capri A5 Menu

See more of this sophis­ti­cated bespoke wed­ding sta­tionery col­lec­tion.

Miami

Miami uses a clas­sic Art Deco sun ray design as the back­ground.  It’s hugely flex­i­ble work­ing bril­liantly in prac­ti­cally any color from big and bold to light and pas­tel.  Fonts can be sim­i­larly var­ied and it can work well with some script fonts to pro­vide a con­trast.  The book­let invi­ta­tion exam­ple below in orange and brown, and the place name both show a script font used to con­trast with the Art Deco design.  It also makes the Bride and Groom’s names really stand out.  There is also a table name and order of ser­vice shown using only Art Deco fonts.

Miami Art Deco Wed­ding Invi­ta­tion Booklet

Miami art deco style wed­ding place name

Miami Table table name design

Art Deco Order of the Day or Pro­gram in blue and orange

More of this sunny take on clas­sic Art Deco can be seen on the main wed­ding sta­tionery site

Genoa

Genoa and Padua are both very adapt­able designs.  Genoa is a design based on the first let­ters of the Bride and Groom’s names and can be done in any font.  So if an Art Deco feel is selected it will look very Art Deco.  Padua works in a sim­i­lar way, except in this case it uses first names.

Genoa art deco place name

Numer­ous other designs also work really with Art Deco fonts.  Sienna is an exam­ple where the basic design isn’t really Art Deco but does take a bit of inspi­ra­tion from the arts and crafts move­ment.  Used with a font like PlazaDReg it will look really effective.

A5 Mounted Invite Sienna with art deco fonts

All of our bespoke wed­ding sta­tionery col­lec­tions start with a base design.  When that is cho­sen I work with each client to adapt the design to the types of sta­tionery items they want to use, of which there is a wide vari­ety.  Together with the client all of the colours, fonts, word­ings and lay­outs are adapted to suit their par­tic­u­lar needs, likes and dislikes.

It’s a real col­lab­o­ra­tive process that makes for really per­son­alised wed­ding sta­tionery that is as unique as each of my fan­tas­tic clients.  There is an exam­ple of how this process worked with one client on my wed­ding sta­tionery blog.