Behind the Scenes: Long Island City Invitation Design

LICBDC Sketch

MSLK is commonly asked what our process is like working on a project. As is the case with designers, it’s often more informative for us to show rather than tell. We recently completed an invitation design for a luncheon at which local Long Island City companies will be honored for their green business practices. Read more to see how we developed the invitation from sketch to completion.

We explored two very different concepts for the design. We normally start our process with hand sketches, representing the idea in its most rudimentary form. From there we create a mood board, which we build from the sketch. The mood board is a place for us to compile design and style inspiration that we feel will help communicate the concept best. At this stage we often start thinking about paper and printing techniques as well.

The image above represents a mood board we created for one of the directions presented. The concept was to use the Keyspan smokestacks as an iconic representation for both industry and Long Island City. Instead of smoke, vines would be growing out of the tops, forming the event identity. Below is the alternative mood board for our more iconic direction in which a gear turns into a daisy. The concept here explored how best to show transformation. We recommended silkscreening onto a bright green paper to help give the piece a tactile feel and standout in the mail.

LICBDC Sketch

At that point, we developed each of the sketches to convey the idea to the client. For the smokestack direction, we showed the invitation exterior as a full-spread.

LICBDC Invitation Smokestacks

For the gear version, the invitation developed more as a booklet.

LICBDC Invitation Gear

After our first presentation, the client chose one direction to pursue. We tweaked the design to really integrate the logotype and put the finishing touches on it. The final result looks like this:

LICBDC Invitation

LICBDC Invitation