a quick collection of random thoughts on your process work from friday jan 26...
for monday, have a mocked up invite (nicely printed, trimmed, folded) and a commencement program (cover with two example spreads)
develop an idea from the work you have, or develop it further. what is the type starting to say to you, the colors, the compositions? is there an idea in there somewhere? what does it say about graduation, about your senior class, about creativity, about this school, about emerging from school to go to the "real world"? some ideas/attributes are emerging – "celebration" (as sarah is doing), "announcing" (kind of like Y's idea), "building", "tradition vs contemporary-ness", etc, etc.
justin, daisy, and Y are playing with imagery. what can be done there? is it about buildings or are other things possible?
related to the notion of an emerging concept, consider the branding piece and what attributes are emerging that you can name and work from? bold, learned, playful, gritty, resilient, etc.
think more about the production resources at hand – paper, ink, die cutting, embossing, etc. – and try to leverage those in a creative way.
don't forget about mailing constraints and how envelope size will dictate announcement size.
now that i look at some of the sizes, i'm not opposed to the square format or things that go in a #10 envelope or whatever. just know that the "a-style" are traditional announcements and other options are more risky because they're non-traditional. people are not that used to getting a graduation announcement in a #10 envelope (usually reserved for business correspondence). regardless of what size you choose, refer carefully to the sizing printout lisa gave you.
enjoy playing with things. be free, be open to things, be playful. then be very serious. then be very...whatever. try on lots of hats in your approach. type can do amazing things – leverage that. arrangements can speak to readers in new ways – try it out. you have to take the time to move it around, massage it, print and look at it, see what it is saying (compositionally) or could say.
i look forward to the final developments on monday!