Update

Whew! The past week and a half has been quite busy for myself and Truly Noted. We actually got some nice, sunny weather here in northern VT so it has been nice to get outside and enjoy it!

This week I finished putting together some advertisements that will run in two of Vermont's premier wedding magazines, VT Vows and Vermont Bride Magazine. I am very excited to be appearing in both publications since they each played a huge role when I was planning my own wedding in 2006. In addition I will be putting together a fun little take-away that will be available at the VT Vows Wedding Affair show held at beautiful Shelburne Farms. I can't wait, I am sure it will be fabulous.

I Heart Word Clouds

So I have noticed this really cool thing on a bunch of other blogs recently, but had no idea where they were getting it- a word cloud. Today I just happened to stumble across what seemingly everyone else has already found, Wordle. Wordle is this cool applet that allows you to plug in any text you want and it will automatically generate your very own word cloud. Basically a word cloud is a jumble of words mashed together in a seemingly random pattern with some words larger and more prominent than others. The size of the words is based on how many times that particular word appears in whatever text you plugged in. You can also choose how you want to text oriented- vertical, horizontal, every-which-way - the font, and the colors.

Even cooler still, you can plug in a URL for a blog or any RSS feed site and it will automatically pick up all of the text from it. Here is what I made based on the Truly Noted blog:

Cool, huh? I can see this being a really cool, unique aspect of a wedding invitation with the names of the bride and groom, special places they have been, adventures they have had together and even just special phrases and words that are meaningful to just them. I am definitely bookmarking this site for future inspiration!

Truly Noted Is Now A Licensed Envelopments Dealer!

I am excited to announce that Truly Noted is now an official Envelopments dealer/designer! I have been using Envelopments' products to create invitations for a couple of years now, but didn't think to apply to become a licensed designer until recently. There is the obvious perk of being able to purchase their paper products at wholesale, giving me greater flexibility in the price that I charge for the end product. But even more than that, I am excited to have the resource of a relationship with the company.

Their website is a great source for inspiration and design ideas and with the license I also receive the official Envelopments design library. This will allow me to show my customers all of their choices for color, texture and pattern. All around it's a great first step for Truly Noted. I can't wait until my design library arrives!

Fun With Fonts

I just got my monthly e-newletter from MyFonts, the best online resource for any type of, well, type that you are looking for. You can search by style, name, foundry, or if you are unsure of the name you can upload an image of a font that you like and use their What The Font feature to find out exactly what font it is. Each month they send me their newest Rising Stars to drool over, and maybe even perhaps buy.


This month I am enamored with the new Aviano Serif, an addition to Aviano and Aviano Sans that were hits last year and voted 'Best Display Couple'. With it's beautifully simple flourishes and a classic elegance, I can see why its a rising star. I particularly love the special characters for certain letter groupings, like EE and OO.


The other stand-out from this month is Oxida- designed to have a ragged, rusty edge. You can't see the details except in a large text size, so it would be best used as a headline on a poster or perhaps on a book cover. Even still, the elegant calligraphic feel of the type would lend itself well to an invitation even without the detail of the rusty edges.

Since invitations can vary in style greatly I try to be prudent about any special fonts that I buy. It needs to be something versatile enough to apply in many situations. Many of the fonts that come standard on a computer already fit this bill pretty well and I try not to get too crazy with really specialized fonts that may only serve a purpose once and then sink to the bottomless depths of my hardrive to never be seen again. But it is fun to browse!

In The Beginning

In the beginning there was just a passionate graphic designer who wanted to start her own company creating fabulous, unique invitations. With some help from her family and friends, she came up with a name, printed some business cards, put up a website and waited for her dream to come true. And this is the story.