JUNIOR INVITATION DESIGNER

We are looking for a highly motivated and detail oriented individual to join our team. Our ideal candidate is someone who is a quick learner with a positive attitude, who can manage tasks within a tight deadline.

DUTIES

• Assist with the design and proofing of custom and semi-custom invitation orders
• Interpret customer needs and wedding inspiration boards into a cohesive design suite
• Update existing invitation suite templates to fit customer preferences (colors, fonts, monograms)
• Communicate clients via email and phone if needed
• Meet design and print production deadlines
• Design marketing content for our website and social media streams
• Assist with miscellaneous hand assembly tasks (wax seal, adhere liners to envelopes, ribbon tying, packaging orders, etc.).

REQUIREMENTS

• 3+ years of graphic design experience in print or digital media
• Portfolio that demonstrates strong knowledge of print design
• Strong knowledge of typography and vector graphics
• Extremely detail oriented and organized
• Understand trends in the wedding industry
• Familiar with our Wedding Collection and our Customization Options
• Solid knowledge of Adobe Creative Cloud programs (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign)
• Strong communication and project management skills
• Able to manage multiple deadlines
• Strong work ethic, desire to learn and grow
• Self-driven, ambitious
• Experience with Shopify, WordPress, and Flodesk (or MailChimp) is a plus

POSITION

• This position is part-time (15-20 hours) with the possibility to expand into a full-time position
• Hybrid work environment, with some days being required in our Tustin, CA studio (our hours are 10:00-4:30pm Tues-Fri, 10:00-2:00pm Saturdays).
• Equipment and software will be provided on-site

HOW TO APPLY

Please email your resume and link to your portfolio: hello@thepapermintpress.com.

The post We’re Hiring! Apply to be a Junior Invitation Designer appeared first on Paper Mint Press Blog.

I’ve created two versions: a 5×7 (A7) document that would be perfect for digitally emailing or texting, and the other is a printer-friendly version with trim marks in case you’d like to send physical announcements. These are sized for A7 or 5in x 7in (the standard size for most invitations).

All you have to do is sign up for my email list (see below) and you can download this resource for free. You just need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (also free). I hope this helps!

Support our Small Businesses

I am hoping this quickly passes for the sake of us all but our small business, along with many others, are taking a massive hit. I was very excited to start my journey as a full-time creative entrepreneur and this challenge has made it difficult to stay positive. This is a reminder that we are still booking clients. If you are getting married later this year or in 2021, I hope that you consider us for your wedding stationery needs. It would mean the world to us. As of right now, all of our meetings are virtual or via phone, and physical samples of our invitations can be mailed to you at your request. We are still producing and shipping orders from our in-home studio. We are very fortunate that our business is able to operate on a fully remote basis, and we thank you for bearing with us! Some simple ways you can help us:

• Sign up for our mailing list below!
• If you are a former couple of mine, a glowing review would be amazing. We live here and here and here.
• Word of mouth referrals are truly the best compliment. Please refer us to friends or family who would appreciate our work!
• Follow us on Instagram
• Or just start a convo with us at hello@thepapermintpress.com. We’d love to hear from you!

The post Free editable ‘Unsave the Date’ PDF for postponed weddings appeared first on Paper Mint Press Blog.

When I started Paper Mint Press back in 2011, it was really meant to be a side business. Emil and I were just learning how to letterpress and we were excited to have a new hobby together printing small orders for friends and family. We never envisioned this business to grow to what it is today. Needless to say, I hadn’t strategized or did any long term planning.  My goal was just to design and print cool stuff – plain and simple. When I set out to design our first logo, I pulled some free fonts that resembled wooden type blocks; an homage to traditional letterpress printing techniques. Our website and brand felt generic because it was; we printed whatever people wanted whether it was business cards, personal stationery, or wedding suites.

I made the first real update to our logo and website in 2014.  It was my first time designing a custom website from scratch and my first time working with a developer to bring it to life. However, our website still wasn’t as user friendly as it could’ve been and it definitely was not optimized for mobile viewing. I admit I designed it purely for aesthetics and not for functionality. Sure I had contact forms on some of the pages and I did have a nice portfolio, but I hardly ever updated it. The ordering process still felt generic. The logo was looking a lot cuter, though! I updated it once more in 2016. It still had an old woodtype feel, but much more modern. I ditched the pointy hand ornament and kept the flywheel “mint” icon (duh). PMP was still mainly a side hustle, but somehow we were getting a lot more serious with the amount of jobs. Our free time was packed with print orders – mostly custom wedding invitations and business cards. Things were good.

Lots of life things happened between then and now. We bought a house, we got married,  got another dog, bought a 2nd house, had a kid…

I don’t know if it was just me having a panic attack with a kid on the way, or just general burn out, but I decided that it was time to make my business run more efficiently. I felt that I was working a lot harder than I needed to, that I could streamline a lot of processes to save myself time, and to create a system that would allow me the option to hire people down the road. Emil and I also took a long hard look at the work we were creating – what sparked the most joy for us? We realized that business cards weren’t as fun as wedding stationery, and that we wouldn’t be sad to kiss that all goodbye. Therefore, I restructured everything to cater to the wedding and event industry. I knew we’d be taking on fewer clients throughout the year, and that they’d be longer and bigger projects, but a LOT more fun to create. It was important to us that we only took on projects that we would be excited about.

I had also been practicing tons of calligraphy, and it was definitely an aspect of my business I wanted to expand. This was the perfect time to introduce it. I also felt that with an infant at home, calligraphy was something I could do that required less man power than printing does, so I could work on projects slowly between naps and life. It was also something I purely enjoy and find extremely cathartic, and something that naturally fit into our business.  While I’m still learning a ton, I felt confident enough to incorporate it in our services.

So with all of these changes, we set out to rebrand…

Problems we wanted to solve with rebrand & website redesign

Problem #1: No clear branding

How we solved it: New logo design – Our old logo was an homage to wooden type, but we never actually print with wooden type.  It felt outdated and inauthentic to our brand. I went back and forth between this casual look and a more “polished” logo, but ultimately decided to keep it playful.  I developed a Brand Style Guide to use as a guide for all my social media, marketing, and print collateral (more on this later). It is important to me that our branding is consistent, recognizable and reflective of our personality as a company.  

Problem #2: Limitless options were too overwhelming for clients

How we solved it: Customization guide – Since our business is mostly service and product based (yet not quite e-commerce), it was quite a challenge to communicate all of the options and ordering process to customers. This guide is a good overview of our options, from print techniques to paper/envelope colors, ink selections, and embellishments. We also launched our semi-custom Wedding Collection, and we hoped that with the customization guide, it would clarify many questions couples had and eliminate the need for so many in-person consultations. Don’t get me wrong, I love meeting my clients face to face, but I wanted to eliminate the need for meetings only to quote and have the client back out or change their minds. I wanted to make sure people were educated on the process and options beforehand, which would (hopefully) make meetings more productive and ensure that I book most (if not all) clients that I meet with. Anyway, what I was finding during meetings was that people were incredibly overwhelmed with ordering custom stationery. Most people honestly don’t know what they want until they see options in front of them, so our Customization Guide and Wedding Collection is a really good place to start narrowing down ideas and options.

Problem #3: No clear way to place an order

How we solved it: Online Order form – I wanted people to know exactly how to initiate their order, so we added a detailed questionnaire to capture information at the very beginning of the process. This step is necessary to put together a custom proposal, gauge our clients’ budgets, and allowed us to send our contract and timeline so the client knew exactly what to expect after initiating the project. 

Problem #4: Clients needed help with wording 

How we solved it: Etiquette guide – I created a simple etiquette guide located at the bottom of our customization guide to help with invitation wording. It’s a good resource to have people refer to and helps people think stationery logistics, like “how can we indicate how many people are actually invited?” or “how can we politely say no kids allowed?” 

Problem #5: People wanted a way to address their envelopes quickly and affordably

How we solved it: Envelope addressing options – I developed three different envelope addressing options for all budgets and timelines: digital printing ($, quick), digital + calligraphy combo ($$, quick-ish), hand calligraphy ($$$, requires time). Finally, clients could really order everything through us (minus postage). I really wanted the process to be streamlined and easy, and I think we we are priced competitively for these services. 

Problem #6: Menus, programs, and place cards were usually ordered very last minute

How we solved it: Day-of accessories – Couples who order wedding stationery with us usually end up coming back for day-of materials. It’s just so much easier and better to have all of the graphic elements match and keep your event branded. I admit this part was an afterthought on our old website – it was mentioned in our services but not really highlighted as something we truly offered, but it is such a huge part of weddings. It can be a cute way to personalize the details for each guest, and it’s just impressive to have coordinating pieces that match your wedding elements!

That’s our rebrand in a nutshell! Hope all of this adds value to our clients’ experience in working with us!

The post Why We Rebranded Our Business appeared first on Paper Mint Press Blog.

I’m the woman behind this business and blog. I started this letterpress business back in 2011 as a creative outlet during a time in my life when my 9 to 5 job was crushing my soul.  I never expected it to snowball into what it is today, but I’m so grateful to be here creating beautiful stationery for weddings and events. I’m a self-taught designer (been at it for over 15 years!), letterpress printer, and I’ve recently added calligraphy to my skillset. I still have a lot to learn, but calligraphy has become a natural part of the business and a nice little escape from computer screens.

One of my favorite things about this business is meeting with couples and finding out the unique details of their relationship. It always inspires the design for their wedding stationery. That’s really the heart of what I do; I create stationery that tells a story. Each and every piece is handmade and my hope is for couples to cherish them as a keepsake for years to come. Perhaps, I don’t know… every anniversary they could, like, take it out of their wedding box and get giddy opening the envelope like it was the first time? Maybe they run their fingers across the luxurious cotton paper and feel the texture of the impression stamped deep within? Maybe they close their eyes and say a silent “thanks” to Paper Mint Press for transporting them back to the good ole’ days of wedding planning (it wasn’t fun back then, but it sure is fun to look back now isn’t it)? Ah, I digress..

But who am I really? I’m a wife to Emil, the other half of this business. We have been together for 10 years, married for 3, and have a perfect 1 year old boy named Eames. We’ve got 2 dogs, Roscoe and Marty, so our household is a bit nuts  to say the least. Orange County is our home and we are homebodies, so much so that we converted our garage into our printing studio. Right now, our lives are pretty centered around our son, watching him absorb his world and trying to soak up each and every bit of him because babies change way too fast! Other things I love: food, home remodeling projects, boba, gatherings, mindfulness.

What you can expect from this blog

During our yearlong rebrand, I took the time to process what our mission and values are as a business. I think I’ve finally come up with a content strategy that makes sense for our audience. I imagine it will take time to fine tune, but I hope to share:

• More behind the scenes content – There’s a lot that goes into the design of stationery, but there’s also tons that goes on during print and assembly. I think many people have sticker shock when it comes to letterpress/foil and assembly pricing, but I hope that by sharing the process, it will educate people about the handmade craftsmanship that goes into it all.
• Portfolio work – I’ve created a semi-custom Wedding Collection of some our favorite work, but this business really thrives on creating custom wedding stationery. I hardly ever feature these suites online, but the couples that I meet with in person seem to be very impressed by what’s possible outside of the standard flat invitation pieces. I’m talking custom shapes, hand watercolored details, custom pockets, etc. You’ll definitely see a wider range of our capabilities here.
• Etiquette – Invitations can have a lot of rules. Does that mean you have to follow them? Heck no. It’s your wedding! If you want to break out of the traditional mold, we’re all for that! I’m here to discuss and show you ways to do it.
• Tips and tricks – How to’s from “How to make the most of your invitation budget” to “How to apply wax seals”
• Business resources – I, myself have scoured the web looking for the best resources for how to run a small business. While I don’t intend to position myself as an expert by any means, I will share some helpful tips and resources that I’ve come across.
• Personal tidbits – I’ve debated whether I should start a lifestyle or personal blog. I feel that besides it being too hard to maintain two separate blogs, it really does make sense to share tidbits of our life on here. We are a mom and pop business (literally) and there’s lots of life happening between printing.. so read and follow us to keep up!

The post Welcome appeared first on Paper Mint Press Blog.