Wimbledon Wedding Illustrations

This year my secret goal has been to do more of the work that I really enjoy and feels most like ‘me.’ It’s always good to have a project that challenges you creatively and take you beyond your ‘comfort zone’. But I’ve also learnt that when a project flows, you should really pay attention to that. Sometimes, comfort zones can tell you something! It can be so easy to develop the mindset that if something feels like hard work it is of more value, and for a long time I think I subconsciously took on that idea. So- instead, I’ve been directing my path more deliberately towards the type of work that feels light and joyful. I recently had the privilege of creating a personalised map and place names for Louise and Tom’s wedding. And this was a very light and lovely commission indeed.

I started out by creating a rough sketch of the map, figuring out how to use the space well. Moving elements around digitally is so useful in this stage of the process, and it took me about three different layouts before I felt I’d cracked it. In the final artwork we reduced the size of the bus and taxi, because they became a bit too much of a focal feature in the sketch.

The map features their wedding venue and home, as well as favourite places that they regularly visit. It was great to work on a map focused on a smaller area because there was room for fun little extras (like the anonymous dog chasing them across Wimbledon Common.)

As well as living and getting married in Wimbledon, Louise and Tom’s wedding day happened to coincide with the Wimbledon tennis finals weekend! So we decided to incorporate that subtly into the map in the form of strawberries and rackets, without it becoming the main theme.

One of my favourite parts of the process is researching an area and adding in little touches like the species of birds and butterflies that can be found there. We also added some personal touches, so the flowers featured in the border and on the place cards are all from Tom and Louise’s garden.

If you would like to chat to me about a personalised map or illustrated wedding stationery, please get in touch at info@clairrossiter.com. I would love to hear from you!