Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » Antique Inspiration

There’s a HUGE antiqe store called Antiques Marketplace about 40 minutes from Providence in a little town called Putnam, Connecticut. They have… everything. They don’t have a website, but if you’re in the area I would highly recommend it. I’ve been there several times and each time I come out with some new treasure (you’ll hear more about my other treasures later). Last weekend I went with my Mom and collected a bunch of post cards to use as inspiration for the typography in Kenzie Kate’s 2009 collection. I went expecting to be inspired by the front of the post cards… turns out, I was actually more intrigued by the backs.

I love the type in all of these. I’m always trying to come up with combinations of fonts that convey both the solemnity and the joy in a wedding invitation. These are exactly what I was looking for.

I’m off to Typophile to try and identify the ones I like. Some I already know and some might be too old. I know for sure I’ll have to settle for “close enough” in some cases. Either way, Typophile is a great resource if you’re looking to let the inner font geek out, or let a little font geek in!

A few more paper treasures. All destined for my inspiration files.

Hey there, thanks for asking! You’re going to think this is funny, but I get a lot of my inspiration for my invitations from interior design magazines. I’m not sure how to explain it, but when I see an image of a room I really like in a magazine like House Beautiful or Domino, I like to translate it into an invitation set. I might not seem like the two could mesh easily, but they do, and I end up with lots of different “attitudes” for my designs.
A few other spots for inspiration:
The fabric store, The art museum, my favorite illustrators, The botanical gardens, old sheet music designs, Martha, old tea and tobacco tins, and really anything I can find at the antique store. That on it’s own is a huge source for me.
I have a folio of stuff I’m thinking of using for the current year’s collection, the previous year’s inspirations get filed away in my filing cabinet. I’m hoping to get a huge cork board soon so that I can display everything I’m currently using up in my office.

Another great way to identify fonts is by going to MyFonts and using the What the Font feature. You upload a photo and you type in the letters where it asks you to identify them and then it will bring up the closest matches in their library! Awesome!

I use Typophile all the time :)

And… so ironically…. I was looking for some of those identical fonts last week! I was making some moving announcements (that are wooden postcards) and looked up old postcards on FLICKR for inspiration!

i too have an inspiration file (or rather box upon box upon box of ephemera garnered from ebay and estate sales) i use in my work (i’m an illustrator and calligrapher). so glad to know there’s others about who collect not for the sake of collecting but for the sake of inspiring. brava.

Write a Comment:

Design*Sponge reserves the right to restrict comments that do not contribute constructively to the conversation at hand, contain profanity, personal attacks or seek to promote a personal or unrelated business.