Benjamin Chan

This year has been one of inspiration and determination. Dan and Melissa were getting married and they invited me to their wedding last September. I was to be their guest and photographer. It was a great experience. The photos turned out great, and I had a really fun time back in the South. Dan is connected to the lady at Mok Duk, who made these awesome invites. I got mine in the mail, and I was totally inspired, then determined.

Inspired by the sheer beauty of the printed invitation, and determined that this was what I was going to try to do.

Joy and Ray ( also friends with Mel and Dan ) asked me to shoot for their wedding, but that didn’t exactly work out, but I offered to do their invitations. Here’s some of my process.

I started by designing the invitation. I wanted to make something long, to fold and fit into the kraft envelopes. Their only stipulation was to use bright pink, yellow, and orange. We quickly agreed on a design and it was off to the print shop.

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I was able to meet my hero today.  Well, at least a screenprint hero.  Jason Munn is The Small Stakes.  He’s a great Graphic Designer and Screenprinter, and he’s also an Oakalander.  He was showing his posters at Design Within Reach in Berkeley.  Kristin and I went down there and I was able to look at his work, chat a little with Jason, and I even showed him some of my prints.  

It’s great to actually see the work in person.  I really appreciate the way his designs are really simple, yet really complex and humorous in design and content.  He does really to create posters for a lot independent bands who have unique sounds and followings.  He was also really friendly and we may possibly swap prints sometime.

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A good thing about participating in East Bay Open Studios ( sorry it’s all about that in these blogs these days ) is that it’s really forced me to get a lot my work organized and prepared to show.  I’ve been learning about the other side of art making:  the organizational, business, marketing side of things.

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