I recently designed some Save the Date magnets for a customer of mine, Cerissa. Cerissa wanted to incorporate a cartoon image of herself and her husband into Save the Dates with magnets attached for their destination wedding in Florida. The final size would be 4" x 5.25". I thought I'd do a brief tutorial to show how I took the cartoon image that I received from the customer and created the Save the Dates using my Illustrator and Photoshop.
Cerissa's cartoon image:
I searched through my vector images looking for something to use for the background and found this beach image. I choose this image because it had the sand and some specs of coloured sand that I thought I could use.
Vector background image:
Using Illustrator, I removed all the objects and blue water part of the vector, except for the sand. I changed the colour of the speckled brown shades of sand to white and using the cartoon image, colour picked the sand background on the cartoon image to change the background colour of the background vector to match.
Here is my result of the vector background image:
Next I wanted to merge the cartoon image onto the background image so using Photoshop I merged both images together and blended the edges of the two images. I also added a few of the white specs with the clone stamp onto the part of the cartoon image to look like it is one continuous background.
Here is the result of the merge of the cartoon image and background:
Then I finished the design in Illustrator with the Save the Date details. I decided to use the words "Pack Your Bags" for the destination wedding and added some fun little vector suitcases and some vector starfish and a palm tree to tie into the starfish and palm tree of the cartoon image. I added the border around the final image as I was adhering it to a turquoise cardstock and I needed something to break up the blue of the cartoon image. I was also using turquoise envelopes to add to the beach theme, turquoise cardstock background and the colours of the design. A full sheet of magnet was attached to the final design on the back of the cardstock. Cerissa said she "looooved them so much!! Her little 8 year old loved them especially. She couldn't wait for Cerissa to open the package! They have them safely tucked away until they are ready to send them out." I really enjoyed making these Save the Dates which are so fun and creative and the customer was really happy with the results! I also designed another version of this in Spanish for Cerissa.
Final Save the Date Design:
