Ashley: a pink bike. Joel: Ninja Turtles and G.I. Joes.

We typically print in house, but on the rare occasion that we outsource, we generally clean it up, set proper bleeds and size (sometimes even crop marks), and then save as a PDF or whatever other file the printer requires. It's also good to get a test print so you can be sure colors are correct.

A7 is a good standard invite size which is roughly 5x7" and fits in a standard A7 envelope (sold most everywhere for greeting cards and such). The rsvp can be postcard size (USPS regulations) or fit in an A2 envelope. Square formats are more expensive for shipping! Hope this helps!

Thanks! Yes it is drawn by hand, originally done in ink and then colored on the computer.

Sometimes! We try to scan in our own found textures as much as possible though. We're always open to trying new downloadable brushes! There are some cool ones out there. Again, we try to do most of our brushwork by hand though.

We scan in our ink drawing hi-res (pencil lines erased), open it up in Photoshop (saved as a PSD), adjust the levels, and clean it up with the eraser using the tablet pen.

Then we make a new layer and fill it in with black using the paint bucket.

Next, we select the entire drawing on the original layer, copy it, hit the "edit in quick mask mode" button on the far lower left hand bar in Photoshop (just below your foreground + background color blocks), paste the copied drawing into the new black layer (it will look like red lines on black), hit the edit in quick mask mode button again (it will then look like dotted lines inside of your drawing), hit delete, and then click your original drawing layer and delete it.

This will eliminate your background completely so that you can put any color behind your drawing.

It will also allow you to color your lines using Photoshop by clicking "lock transparent pixels" in the upper left of your layers bar (next to "lock:"), picking a color, and going to town on top of the lines. You'll see the magic right away!

WHEW. That's difficult to type! If you can't get the hang of it let us know and we will do a tutorial on our blog! Hope this helps! Try it out for sure.

Feel Script! Veer has the best fonts! http://marketplace.veer.com/font/Feel-Script-UMT0000300

This is always difficult. We still face those clients constantly! We usually try to pin down their ideas with an extensive "questionnaire" where we ask them as many detailed questions about their design as possible (colors, imagery, style, etc.). Style boards are also helpful, where the client sends a bunch of inspirational images they have found online or from your own previous work. If they still aren't sure, sometimes you just have to take a stab in the dark and do your best to pull together ideas you think they would like. Usually once they see the first or second draft, they have a much more clear vision of what they want and will tell you each and every little detail you need to fix! It's a challenge every time but that's the best advice we can offer! Hope it helps!

Each font designer typically specifies legal rights. Some are very restricted and some are open-ended. We recommend buying as many fonts as you can afford. The free ones can be faulty and are usually badly designed when it comes down to it (though we are guilty of using them every now and then). Try buying fonts on www.myfonts.com. They have a lot of really well designed ones for a more affordable price. It will be worth it and you'll always have them around for future projects.

The first and most important thing is to have a marketable identity that shows you have those two things to offer. You may not have a website yet, but you can show and sell your invitations through Etsy to get started. Networking about your new business via facebook, twitter, and flickr is extremely important. You will find your goods spread fast by word of mouth on these social networks. The best advice we can give is to network as much as possible, brand yourself well, and don't give up when times get tight! Your hard work will pay off with patience! Good luck!

We do use Photoshop most often! Illustrator may seem easier, but since we do everything by hand, usually with ink, Photoshop allows us to hold true to our original drawings. The editing really isn't very time consuming or difficult, plus we can add textures and editing that we cannot execute as well Illustrator. We also use the Wacom tablet pretty often when we're not using a real brush, which works nicely in Photoshop. Every now and then we'll create an original drawing in Illustrator, especially when we want it to look super clean or sharp. But we are old fashioned at heart and take a lot of pride in using old tools and doing most everything by hand on paper!

We use a Canon 30D and a Rebel (the Rebel is what we started on). We really love the 30D but we do lust after the 5D Mark II (hopefully one day we'll get our hands on it... or its newest version). Our favorite lens is a Canon 50mm. It has really great depth of field! A Rebel is a great way to get started though. It worked for us! It's all about working with what you have and growing into new equipment as you get more comfortable and can afford it.

Joel would be a juggler or a lion tamer and Ashley would be a tight rope walker.

A crappy one... is this a real question?

Joel: Tintin, so I could be really successful at my job while running around defeating drug-smugglers and crooks all over the world.

Ashley: Penelope, because she has amazing terrariums and the coolest clothes I have ever seen!

Ashley speaks English :) and Joel speaks German and French.

We were photographing a wedding in Bozeman! We drove up from Johnson City, TN with our two best friends (and cousins) who were in the wedding party. It was a long trek but an absolute blast. EPIC even.

Yes and no. You might have a "feeling" about someone from the very beginning... but to really love someone you have to know them.

Yes?

We are working for national or even worldwide recognition in our work (with large well known clients such as Target, Apple, Martha Stewart, or Time magazine). We would also love to have a couple children's books published. One thing we don't want to do is settle for less by "just making money" rather than pushing ourselves further every day and constantly raising the bar. In five years we hope to be at least stable enough to be rocking This Paper Ship full time with all of the equipment, resources, and skills we need to keep it alive and well. In ten years we hope to finally be "making our big break" and become an influential part of the design world. It's a tall order but we're going to try! Oh, and we'll probably tack some little artistic ankle biters onto that five year plan as well! ;)