Sometimes, creating custom stationery is like blindly throwing darts. You throw out a bunch of darts (aka design concepts) and hope one of them hits the target (aka matches up with what the client wants).
Other times, creating custom stationery is like a fire drill. A last-minute request comes in and you need to stop whatever you're doing and tend to the fire ASAP.
And still other times, creating custom stationery is like Iron Chef. You know the mystery ingredient (aka theme of the event) and have a general idea of what you want to cook (aka design), but it's not until your food is plated and sitting in front of the judges that you'll know if everything worked (aka presented to the client).
Ok, that's enough bad metaphors for one day.
The menu card shown above was designed for the Ko'olau Ballrooms open house event held in late 2012. The direction I got was exactly as follows: vintage/Hawaiian/earthy + moss green/brown + textural. With only a couple of days to pull this together, the design ended up being a 3-layered card with the bottom layer faintly resembling tightly woven lauhala, a middle layer of chocolate brown, and the top ivory layer accented with a pair of ferns. All in all, a successful dart-throwing, fire drill-inspired, Iron Chef presentation...and I couldn't be happier with the way the table was staged!
(Photo by Kris Labang Photography)