Finding the exact location of a wedding venue can be a difficult task. I know I have gotten lost several times driving from the ceremony to the celebration, and this becomes an even bigger problem when you are the ‘out of town guest.’ To solve this problem, brides often ask us what kind of maps to include in their wedding invitation sets, and more importantly, what these maps should look like.
One of the members of our expert design team recently graduated from Sonoma State University with a degree in geography. I decided to ask him for some ideas, based on his immense knowledge of cartography (map making) and graphic design, what he thought were the five most important elements of a map in a wedding invitation:
1) Figure Out What is Important
The first thing to decide on is what’s important for your specific map. What do your wedding guests need to know to get to the venue? Too much detail and people get confused, too little and they might miss the location. The guests only need to be directed to one or two locations, so a detailed map of the entire region isn’t necessary.
2) Routes
What is the simplest way to arrive at the destination? Think about how your guests will be getting there, i.e., is there a major freeway or intersection everyone will have to pass through? Or will people be coming from all different directions, and distances? Remember, if you are going to have out of town guests, you may want to indicate where the nearest freeway is located.
3) Keep It Simple
This is a great rule to follow for all aspects of life, and here is no exception. You do not need every last detail, stick to the basics and essentials. Important road names, landmarks and cross streets only, beyond that and people may get confused. If a street in reality is winding, don’t worry so much about making your small map an exact replicate, give it a little bend and the guests will figure out the rest. Also, trying to fit your map to a precise mathematical scale typically requires excessive details and may actually hurt, not help, the guests to understand the directions.
4) Use Google Maps
Search for the area near your venue and print this map out. This can be used as a template to start designing from. Highlight the different routes, roads and landmarks that are important. Then whoever will actually make the map knows exactly what you want, and what route is important.
5) Style
Depending on your invitation set, you will have to decide on a specific style for your map that matches the overall aesthetic. Whether they are hand drawn, geometric, artistic or formal, the map colors and design can be constructed to match your personality and wedding theme.
Maps in wedding invitations can be a place to add extra flare or emotion. If your wedding has a whimsical theme, hand drawn maps can be particularly fun and creative (and they look great especially on letterpress invitations). If your wedding is formal, you can have a very clean, simple, straight line map or an elegant smooth map.
There are many different options and styles to choose from. The sky, or in this case the ground, is the limit!
Written by Nick
Invitations by Ajalon
View our letterpress wedding invitation gallery.
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