It’s finally spring (we even got a little sun here in the pacific northwest last week to celebrate)! Now is the perfect time to order invitations for late summer/autumn weddings, so we thought we’d spice things up a bit with a promotion!

From now until May 1st, receive $100 off any Studio Collection order over $750! Orders must be placed by May 1st to receive discount. Our Studio Collection contains five designs that range from modern to tropical to romantic – letterpress printed on luxurious 100% cotton stock. Customize your favorite design with your choice of fonts and colors to really make it your own.

View the complete collection on our website here: http://bsdstudio.com/portfolio/studio-collection/overview. Any questions? Feel free to contact us any time at hello@bsdstudio.com!

Here’s one of our letterpress designs available on the new Pressroom & Co. website (check out this post if you’re not sure what I’m talking about). I love the photo of the newly printed invite (left) – to view it larger (and to see more freshly printed designs) visit their flickr stream.

To see more of our designs available through Pressroom & Co., check out our designer page on their site (more new designs coming very soon)!

We are so thrilled to announce our partnership with The Pressroom & Company! The Pressroom & Company is a site featuring multiple designers and offering very affordable letterpress wedding invitations, baby announcements, and personal stationery.

In their own words…

The Pressroom & Company (TP&C) is a select group of experienced and passionate stationery designers, proudly offering beautiful stationery to an ever-expanding community of online buyers as of January 15, 2011. Our timeless designs and exceptional, yet affordable letterpress printing are a perfect match for all of life’s events.

TP&C designs are styled by renowned invitation designers from all over the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Their design styles showcase a wide variety of artwork from modern to vintage, floral to calligraphic and more. If you think our designs look good online, wait until you see them in print.

Brown Sugar Design has two new designs currently available through TP&C, with more coming very soon! Later this week I will be profiling these designs here on the blog, and I’ll also be featuring a few of my favorites from other TP&C designers! Stay tuned!

Visit The Pressroom & Company website here and keep up with their constantly updating Flickr stream here (letterpress lovers rejoice: items freshly off the press featured here!!)

We will be participating in the Seattle Wedding Show this coming weekend – this will be our seventh year with the show! We are in a new location this year – right up in front in booth #236. Tickets are available online for $2.00 off the regular admission price. We hope to see you there – visit our booth and say hello!

Pardon the blog silence for the moment, dear friends – we are in the middle of a move! Jonathan, Stella, Twinkie and I are knee-deep in boxes, tape guns, and sharpies. We’ll be back very soon – once the dust settles a bit and we’re in our new home we will have lots of great stuff to share – photos of recent work, an exciting new partnership, and much more!

We recently discovered we were selected for inclusion in the new design publication 1000 More Greetings! 1000 More Greetings features an expansive collection of correspondence for all occasions. We were honored to have two invitations featured amongst an impressive group of designs from around the world.

The invitations included include our London-inspired suite (featured on our blog previously here) as well as our studio open house invite (previously featured here).

Also featured in the book were some favorites like Sycamore Street Press, Orange Beautiful, Rifle Paper Co., and NicStudio! The collection is so much fun to look through – pick up a copy today!

In truth, we’ve spent much of the past year taking a serious look at our business and what we want out of it. For the last two years, we’ve had moments of uneasiness. We weren’t sure if we were just going through a creative block (it happens, unfortunately) or if we were tired of working with weddings specifically. We thought perhaps it could be the slow economy (which has certainly taught us a thing or two in itself).

Eventually though, we realized it really wasn’t any of those things. We had an unbelievable summer and had the privilege of working on some of our all-time favorite projects. These projects refreshed us and helped us realize we haven’t lost our passion for the wedding industry or, more importantly, for good design. One of the reasons we felt so refreshed was that we worked closely with individuals who are just as passionate for paper and design as us. They shared our style and design aesthetic, and the projects were truly collaborative. They trusted our expertise and recommendations and looked to us for guidance – and we had an absolute blast working with them.

Given this opportunity, we were able to reexamine and redefine who we are as designers and what we want from our company. We’ve redefined our goals and how we intend to reach those goals. We’ve retooled our processes and methods.

While a few things have changed, one thing that will stay constant is our commitment to good design and providing our clients with the best service and end-product possible.

A few updates we can share:

• We will be updating our wedding Studio Collection with additional designs and additional customization options throughout the year. We’ve already finished a couple of these designs and I can tell you they’re a lot of fun!

• Our package minimum for all custom invitation projects has increased to $1500.00. This new minimum isn’t a huge change (the majority of our clients invest that amount or more already in their packages). It’s our continued commitment to provide brides and grooms with great design and exceptional service for their investment.

• In addition to working with brides and grooms on wedding projects, we will also be placing more focus on working with businesses on corporate design projects. This is something we’ve done for years – but it hasn’t been at the forefront of our services. We have an especially unique perspective to help businesses in the wedding industry with their needs – more to come on this very soon!

• Our sketchbooks are out and we’re working on some fun new projects – stay tuned for more!

We understand that it is an investment to work with designers, and we strive to make sure that it is an expense well worth the cost. We look forward to continue to offer superior design services to all our clients, whether they are a newly engaged couple seeking invitations, or a business seeking a new image.

As mentioned in the beginning of the post, we are passionate not just about stationery design, but great design. PERIOD.

Lastly… oh, nevermind – what’s with all this seriousness? Let’s get back to the blogging fun!

What a fun time of year! The sun is (finally) out, sundresses and wedge sandals can be worn once again, the grill is fired up, my flowers are thriving, and we here at Brown Sugar Design are offering an exciting wedding promotion!

Receive your choice of a FREE one-color enclosure with any Studio Collection invitation order! Take advantage of this offer to receive a free RSVP card, directions card, reception card, or thank you flat card in the same color and style as your invitation.

Or, if you’re more interested in Custom Invitations, schedule an appointment with us and receive 10% off your entire custom order – AND, if that wasn’t enough, we’ll also waive our consultation fee!

Don’t miss out on this great summer deal for your fall or winter wedding!

Studio Collection orders must be placed by July 18th to receive free enclosure; Custom consultation must be scheduled by July 18th to receive discount.

This is much belated, as these cards aren’t really that new anymore -

With the new overall look for our online presence, we decided it was also time to freshen up our business cards! These little beauties are letterpress (in a deep, smoky, warm gray) on Crane’s Lettra 100% cotton stock. For some reason we can’t bring ourselves to have a standard size business card (our last bunch were square) – these cards are 3.5″ x 1.75″ for a long, lean look (and still long enough to fit in a business card holder, which was an issue with our square cards).

Jonathan and I have been completely overwhelmed this week by the outpouring of compliments, kudos, and adulation from colleagues, friends, brides, and others regarding our site redesign! (They like us, they really like us!)

We can’t thank everyone enough for the kind words!

A big thank you is due to Christy at Junebug Weddings for the great blog post about our new Studio Collection – check it out here! And another thank you is definitely in line for Nole at Oh So Beautiful Paper for hosting our giveaway! Entries are still being accepted – WIN 100 letterpress wedding invitations from the Studio Collection! Head on over to her blog for details and to enter – entries will be accepted until 11:59 PM EST tonight.

We will be heading out of town for a couple of days – a much needed break after the excitement of this week! We’ll be back bright and early Monday morning – just in time for the winner of the giveaway to be announced. Stay tuned!