After discussing it for a bit, we decided two versions of the cards would work for us, a “fun” version and a “don’t frighten the elders” version. Now, in retrospect, they’re both fun, but this became our operator keyword when discussing the design.

The first, or “fun”, version is designed as a comic book. My fiancé, Sally, and I have superhero names for each other, Captain Distracto and Olfactra. I tend to be attracted to obejcts that are shiny, dull, fast, slow, animate, in-animate…you get the picture, so my name is Captain Distracto. It seems as though my most difficult task is to remain focused on any conversation without looking and interupting all over the place. I mean no harm by it, I just like the shiny objects. Sally’s name, Olfactra, come from her ability to smell any bad odor from (what seems like) miles away. She evens knows the smell of earwax! Earwax does in fact have a smell, who knew? Using these heroes as our base, I created a comic book style postcard to reflect our alter-egos.

The second postcard is actually our original idea. We took a series of four photos in a photobooth and held up pieces of paper with the words “Save”, “The”, “Date” and “May 26th, 2007″. Easy, to the point and still a showing our creative sides.

We had a lot of fun coming up with the concepts and I really enjoyed putting these together. By setting the tone early, we hope to maintain this fun attitude throughout the wedding process and onto our lives together.

Mark Jones is a new media artist in the UK. I found his site via the Graphic Design Bar forum and was delighted by his work. Humorous and original, it struck a cord with me immediately. His series, The Politically Incorrect Alphabet, had me rolling on the floor with laughter.

While the alphabet was great, Mark also provides printable cut-out dress-up sheets of a Bride and Groom (PDF). I’m thinking of making these into magnets to put on the fridge.