Style.ish Designs

Rhonda Gail | April 9, 2009

I am so excited to bring today’s post to you! I have been reading I am Style-ish for awhile now. I just now discovered that husband and wife Tiffany and Jared have an invitation line, just one of many products and services offered as part of their photography and design business, style.ish. I am so excited to see such exciting and fresh designs on the scene. I asked Tiffany a few questions about her passions, design, photography, and fashion.

What inspires you in graphic design?
From Jared: Coming from an Architectural background I love clean modern designs but mixed with street style too. I really like grafitti artists like banksys and I’m also influenced by colorways on sneakers. I believe good design should be influenced by good design regardless of it’s media.
From Tiffany: The way we work together is that he comes up with the design and then I give him input. He tends to take a more modern, graphic approach and I like things to be a bit girly and chic so our invitations are a bit of a mix of that.

In a world with an increasing number of modern invitation designers, how do you set your designs apart? We give a more personal feel to the invitation. We really put a lot of thought into the couple and how they want to reflect themselves and the mood for their wedding. The images of our clients are integrated into the design, not just placed into a template. We also give design feedback on which image we believe will truly compliment the total design. Although we have “templates” that couples can choose from, none will be exactly alike because of our approach. Our clients trust in us to keep them style.ish.

We really feel that we are in a new generation of couples who are getting married. A lot more of us are now paying for our own weddings, willing to break the wedding traditions and really just go with what we love. We are definitely one of those couples as we had a very small destination wedding in Jamaica. When Jared and I decided that we were cutting the guest list, not having a bridal party, not having favors, not having a DJ, etc.. I did not regret our decision for one second. I have had many women write me emails after seeing my wedding on my blog and telling me that I had “a dream wedding” and you know what? I agree. I for sure had my dream wedding and I didn’t follow most of the wedding “traditions” that we all feel like we should follow. Our invitations are reflective of that, we are breaking from the norm and really showcasing the couple’s personalities rather than just being an invite to a formal party.

Why wedding invitations? It really goes hand in hand with our photography. We love photographing couples in love, we love capturing the emotions and the way they interact with each other. What better way to take those pictures than to put them into a wedding invitation or Save the Date, where you can share your love with all your friends and family. There is no other event out there like getting married when you can show off your love to the people closest to you!

Photography, graphic design, fashion blogging… how do you balance it all? What drives you to keep creating more? It’s a tough balance I admit. I definitely have my moments that I want to pull my hair out and scream. I have a full time job that keeps me quite busy as well so I do all these things on my free moments. The truth is, photography, design and fashion are my passions and I just enjoy doing them. You can’t go through life without having passions. What keeps me going is the desire to always do more with my life. I’m a highly motivated/driven person and pretty much nothing stops me. I have been told from numerous people in my life about how I inspire them and motivate them to do more. I find that a huge compliment because I truly believe that to enjoy life, you need to follow your dreams, no matter how big they are. Even just the smallest accomplishment is the greatest feeling in the world when you know you are doing something you love.

Do you have a favorite creative outlet? When I’m not doing those three things, photography, design and blogging, I love to crochet. It’s the sense of accomplishment in such a small amount of time is what I love. I can spend a few hours crocheting and then have a cute little animal to admire. I’m not highly creative in that I can’t paint or draw if my life depended on it but I can crochet a very cute elephant. Sometimes, it’s just the littlest things that make me happy.