Gerber Daisies

My current project is wedding invitations due in late August.  The bride expressed an interest in pinks and cranberry and she loves gerber daisies.  Actually, Jenny is a gerber daisy.  If people and flowers had kindred personalities, these two would be a perfect match.  Jenny is adorable, blonde and all-American.  She has freckles and bright blue eyes.  Her personality is upbeat and fun-loving.  Gerber daisies have that same feel to them, they are uncomplicated (not that Jenny doesn't have her moments), full of color and cheer.  They bring smiles and happiness. 

Taking all of this into consideration, I had to figure out how I was going to use those daisies in such a way that conveys happiness but shows a touch of sophistication as well.   I took tons of pictures of the daisies, I scanned them in on my scanner.  Then I started working with the photos in Photoshop.  Overlaying and de-saturating  wasn't giving the effect I wanted.  Deep down inside I knew that I was going to have to bite the bullet and trace each and every petal.  Once I exhausted all other options,  I started- one petal, then two, until about an hour and a half later the entire flower was traced and looking wonderfully pink, the pink we decided on.   I started working with this new image and then realized that another daisy would be great as well, so I opened up my file of daisy pictures and chose one that was in profile.  This one didn't take half as long.  

The type layout was key.  It had to be super sophisticated. The gerber daisy is lovely and sweet but does not have the grace of, say a peony.   The fonts I ended up using were Gill Sans or Cambria to counteract the complexities of the script font, Bickham.  After coming up with multiple type layouts that I was happy with,  I added daisies to four different versions of the invitation. 

I was really happy with how these came out.  I sent them to my client last night and now I am awaiting her reply. Hopefully she is happy and we can move on to RSVP cards, programs and place cards!   I'll keep you posted.