Recent Articles

Adding Extras to Your Invitations

Posted by stephanie on April 27, 2012 Comments closed

Events can be complicated, but when everything comes together just right, the fine-tuned details make your party seem flawlessly planned. All the little things your guests need to know — for starters: where to go, how to get there, when to arrive, what to wear, who to bring (or not bring) — take up valuable real estate in your invitation. But there’s an even bigger question for you as the host: Where to fit it all?

There’s a seamless, elegant solution. Adding additional cards to your invitation lets you share all of the important details without clumsy follow-up emails or a crowded card. It gives you the freedom to play with spacing, colors, and fonts on your invitation to make sure your guests get a stellar first impression — save the fine print for the extra cards.

Multiple cards are an especially good option for weddings; your recipients can get the experience of traditional multi-piece wedding invitations, minus the paper waste and through-the-roof costs for you. Add cards for accommodation options, ceremony details, directions, or times for a morning-after brunch.

To add additional cards to your mailing, click Add and then Card when in the design tool. (We recommend using the same card or a similar one that matches. Click Options and then Change Paper to choose from any card on the site.) You can add up to five additional cards to a single mailing, so play around with creative inserts like hand-drawn maps or photos — perhaps one of you and your fiancee for an engagement announcement or a candid of your two-year-old for his birthday invite. Aya, a member of the Paperless Post support team, used multiple cards to list the different potential locale options for her birthday party. (See? It’s okay to be indecisive if you do it with grace.)

In our dream world, all of life’s logistics would be conveyed this seamlessly.

Sigh,
The Paperless Team

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The Beauty of Free: Announcing Cards for Life’s More Dressed-Down Affairs

Posted by stephanie on April 16, 2012 Comments closed

Great style transcends formality. Some of the most memorable things — a simple summer salad, a bottle of wine in the park, your favorite striped shirt — are also the most casual and least expensive.  We understand that not all of your weekend plans require you to break out your tux, so we’ve launched a program of nearly 500 designs that let you be chic without being “fancy.”  These cards can be delivered directly in the body of the email with a one-click reply button,* making the whole process less of a to-do for your recipients, too.

Oh, and by the way, all of these cards are free. (Yeah, free free.)

“Free” means you don’t have to wait around for an event that’s “worth it,” anymore. So many of our users have wished out loud that they had more special occasions to design Paperless Post invitations for, but now you can create cards without calling on your friends to put on their Sunday best. Picnics in the park, rooftop barbecues, high-fives for new grads, and birthday wishes all deserve memorable cards, too.

To see our free cards, click All in the main navigation and then select Free from the Price drop-down menu. We have 479  free cards right now and will always be adding more.

Isn’t it great when someone tells you that you can have this thing that you already love… for free?

We wish that happened more often,
The Paperless Team

 

*Envelopes still cost 1 coin each even for free cards, so don’t add one (or be sure to remove a defaulted one) if you want your card to be completely free. When you send your card without an envelope, the card will be displayed in the body of the email and your guests will be able to RSVP right there — perfect for the uninitiated or less tech-savvy.

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Inspired by Venice

Posted by ellie on April 10, 2012 Comments closed

The creation of our Venetian collection was something of a departure for us. Rather than focus on a specific event or season, we dove deep into the city and tradition of Venice for inspiration. The cards’ burnished colors and hand-drawn patterns pay homage to the  look and feel of vintage papers — and, appropriately, each card began its life in pen and ink.

These cards are undeniably elegant — some might even say ornate — but don’t wait for a black-tie event to use them. Any of the cards from this line would work as an invitation to a dinner party, an upscale birthday card, or a tasteful thank you note.

So much inspired this line — from the Peggy Guggenheim collection to the masks of Carnivale and the art of marbling — that we created a Pinterest board for those of you who wanted an even more intimate look.

Let’s spend the summer in Venice this year,
The Paperless Team

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Unveiling the New Look of Paperless Post

Posted by stephanie on April 5, 2012 Comments closed

There’s nothing quite like buying a new wardrobe that plays up your best assets—which is pretty much how we feel unveiling our new logo this week. We got some new threads and we feel, well, decked! This is our first logo update since our 2009 launch and, though we’ll always have a special place in our hearts for our original avian stamp, it was time for a makeover. We hope you like it as much as we do.

To make sure that the next iteration of the Paperless Post logo represented us as a brand, we paired a hand-lettered script that recalls the tradition of correspondence with a contemporary roman typeface that conveys modern elegance. Naturally, we didn’t want to part with our little bird, but he was looking pretty ravenous. (Paperless Post isn’t fierce, even if your parties are.) So our carrier pigeon was redesigned as the faithful, reliable, and dignified companion that he really is—your digital stationery is safe with him.

So far, everyone’s taken a shining to our new look and we hope you do, too. We’re also working on heaps of new features that we’ll be launching in the near future. Stay tuned!

(Is rolling out new features like getting chic furniture to go with your handsome new clothes?)

Until the next party,
The Paperless Team

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Share with a little help from your friends!

Posted by aya on March 12, 2012 Comments closed

Guest lists: can’t live with them, can’t live without them…or can you?  We know that one of the most stressful parts of planning an event is creating the guest list, so we made it a little easier for hosts! Obviously if you’re planning an intimate gathering or a wedding you’ll compose and perfect the guest list, but what if all you’re planning a casual pub crawl on St. Paddy’s Day where the entire city is invited? If only you could create an invite and have a guest list magically create itself…You can! Shareable invitations on Paperless Post allow you to do just this.

By using our share tools to further distribute your invitation, you can invite guests via social networks — a much easier, more casual way to invite friends to an event.  On top of that, others can share your invitation further! Start out by sending personalized invitations to your friends whose email addresses you know and the rest of the guest list can fill itself through sharing.

Gone are the days of asking your roommate to tell her brother to let his friends know about the pub crawl or charity event you’re chairing. Just let the invitation spread the word and do the work through Twitter, Facebook, instant message conversations, email threads, list-servs and so on. Everyone and anyone can view your invitation and RSVP or register to attend! You can even set a cap on the maximum number of attendees so you can still manage and control your attending count. We think this feature is great both for casual events like a backyard barbecue and for larger events like launch parties, trunk shows, and even ticketed or donation-based events, like fundraisers. Don’t have an event? No worries – you can share any of your cards to spread a good word or a design you particularly love.

The shareable tools can be found on the Delivery page of your card. Just open up the share tools and click, “Activate.” Activating means anyone can view, RSVP and further share your invitation. Share the link and watch your guest list populate itself! With the guest list taken care of, now you can focus on the fun stuff, like which card design to choose – just make sure it’s a good one, as people will be sharing it!

Check out our shared Saint Patrick’s Day card!

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A Little Photo Fun

Posted by Stampy on March 8, 2012 Comments closed

While we love presenting new cards for our users to enjoy, we also work hard to create features that will make our existing cards look even cooler. To that end, we’re proud to present two new ways to further personalize your cards: photo filters and text effects.

Photo Filters
You’ve been rummaging around for the perfect picture to spice up your next birthday or anniversary invitation. It’s a great picture on its own, but it could pop a little more if only you were a Photoshop master. Luckily, Photo Filters are on the case! Photo filters can help you make that picture even better without permanently changing the original image.

It’s so easy – here’s what you do:

- Find a photo card that you’d like to use
- Upload your photo or select a photo from your account
- Click the Photo Filters menu directly above the card image.

You can choose from eight unique filters that offer different layers and color washes. Go vintage glam with Juergen or add Technicolor for that Polaroid feel. Doing this will only change your photo in your card, so you can play with all of the filter possibilities until you find one that you love.

A personal favorite of ours is Vintage Sepia, which makes photos look like they came out of a forgotten shoebox in an ancient attic. Click a card below and get started – your cards will never be the same!

Photo Filters

 

Text Effects
If you are looking for additional ways to make your text pop, we now have two new ways for you to give your card a designer touch.

You can emboss or letterpress the wording on your card to make it even more luxurious. Both of these effects make our online cards look all the more fabulous and authentic.

You can also use one of our new metallic fonts for a more upscale feel. Our personal favorite is a metallic font paired with a dark card to really bring out the glamour, like this card!

Lucia's Birthday Party

Get started on creating a card with metallic fonts by using Disco, Snakeskin, Gold Leaf, or Keep it Quiet.

You can find out more about how we built this feature on our Dev Blog.

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Love, romance and …coffee machines?

Posted by Stampy on February 14, 2012 Comments closed

Stewy and Pella

When you work at a company that helps people communicate with their friends and loved ones, you spend a lot of time thinking of things you’re thankful for. While we’re all for grand romance, fancy dinners and surprise flower deliveries, this Valentine’s Day we wanted to spread the love we have…for our office!

How do we love thee? Let us count the ways…

PUPPIES!
We seriously love our office dogs. Yes, it’s hard to get work done when there is this much cuteness running around, but that’s just fine by us. Too bad we don’t need anyone to lick any real envelopes or stamps around here – we think they’d be excellent for that job!

COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE
At last count we had no fewer than four ways to make coffee, including an authentic diner-grade 3-pots-at-a-time coffee maker, an espresso machine, and two french presses. We. Like. Coffee.

ART ART, EVERYWHERE
We create the majority of our card designs in-house, and many of them start with hand drawings or construction. It’s hard not to be happy when half your office is a craft room! As if that weren’t enough, our users then take our crafts and customize them to be their own.

HOMEMADE BAKED GOODS
Sometimes we think there’s a silent agreement that in order to work here you must have a strong interest in baking for the office at least once a week. Luckily we’re all very happy to oblige our budding chefs.

GADGETS GALORE
While our support team is ready to help users on any computer, at Casa Paperless Post we have a slight obsession with Apple.

USERS
Yes we’re a tech company, yes we’re a design company, but we’re also a people company. Our goal is to create a beautiful, simple way for you to communicate. We think about our users all the time, and use so many of their suggestions. So thank you for caring so much, and helping us make the best product possible!

This has gotten mushy enough for us. We hope you are having a very happy Valentine’s Day! Send a card to your loved ones today.

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Hearts Aflutter on Paperless Post

Posted by ellie on February 7, 2012 Comments closed

One thing we love at Paperless Post is how many of our users tell us they spend hours just browsing through all our creative card designs, even when they aren’t planning to send a card or invite.  We’re the same way!

While sometimes you have the time to hunt around for cards you love, we want to make sure that you can also pull up all your favorite cards quickly when you have a party to plan or a thank you note to send. We worked long and hard to come up for a word for this, and we’ve decided to go with…favoriting!

Favorite HeartNow, you can click the heart icon above any card to add it as a favorite. The number next to the heart indicates how many other users added this card as a favorite, so you can see which cards are the most popular in the Paperless Post community.  To look at all of your Favorites, click the red heart icon on the homepage. We think this feature is a crucial part of getting into the Valentine’s Day spirit, so don’t be afraid to spread some love around the site!

Obviously we couldn’t write a post like this without sharing some of our favorite cards. If you like them too let us know!

Ball Pit   Matryoshka Doll

The Playful Spirit
When dreaming of our fantasy office space, we imagine a giant ball pit on our roof. When that day comes, we will have the perfect reason to send this card.

The Nostalgic
We’ve also had our eye on the Matryoshka Doll card. If you have memories of playing with your grandmother’s stackable doll set, you know what we mean.

Eye ChartThe Romantic
We have a hard time resisting the red favoriting heart above every single one of our Valentine’s Day cards, (which were recently featured in a Wall Street Journal article). As a bunch that wears glasses, this Valentine’s card reminds us of a trip to the eye doctor – if only their eye charts were this fun to read. This one from one of our partners, Mr. Boddington’s Nephew, is too sweet to resist.

We love hearing stories from our users about how they connect to our cards. Feel free to leave a comment, post on our Facebook page, or tweet at us to tell us about your favorite cards on the site and why they make your heart go all aflutter.

 

 

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Raise awareness! We’ve partnered with Ralph Lauren

Posted by lucy on October 7, 2011 Comments closed

Paperless Post is happy to announce our collaboration with Ralph Lauren on the first ever Pink Pony Hope Card Collection. Together we engaged four influential online personalities to design their own cards celebrating hope. Each blogger’s card reflects her personal style with a special message of hope. Additionally, each card has a link to donate to the Pink Pony Fund.

With a focus on breast cancer, the Pink Pony Fund of the Polo Ralph Lauren Foundation supports programs for early diagnosis, education, treatment and research and is dedicated to bringing patient navigation and quality cancer care to medically underserved communities. This October send a message of Hope to friends and family and help drive awareness to Pink Pony’s mission of ensuring that everyone, regardless of income, can access the care they need!

To send a Pink Pony Hope Card on click any of the images below!

Katie of The NeoTraditionalist, Blair of Atlantic-Pacific, Heather of Habitually Chic, Dallas Shaw of Dilly Dallas and Paperless Post for Pink Pony.

             

          

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Get Your Tickets Here! We’ve Partnered with Eventbrite

Posted by lucy on August 12, 2011 Comments closed

Today I’m excited to announce a new partnership between Paperless Post and Eventbrite, a leading online ticketing and registration platform for both small and large events.

Since our earliest days we’ve believed that it would be valuable to provide our users with a simple way to host ticketed events, and even flirted with a PayPal integration in the Fall of 2008.  Ultimately we decided that the only way to do something well is to put everything you have into it, and it’s simply not possible to put your all into many things when you’re starting up. So we decided to stick with our strength (and frankly, our obsession): delivering elegance to your inboxes.

That means that instead of deciding to go deep and creating a great ticketing platform we quietly abandoned that effort and continued to focus on design and presentation, and on building a design tool that allows anyone (no matter their design savvy) to create something extraordinary without leaving their browser.

While our design tools have produced some pretty great results we are very proud to now be able to provide an integrated ticketing solution.  After creating your card on Paperless Post you will see the option to link to your Eventbrite account on the Details page and then you simply select from your upcoming published Eventbrite events!  Your ticketing or registration widget will then appear to the right of your invitation, in place of the RSVP card.

Eventbrite not only offers ticketing with various pricing and levels, but complex registration for events like reunions, and charity donation forms.  Their registration functionality matches the depth and breadth of Paperless Post’s design categories allowing you to leverage the most out of both platforms.

Eventbrite’s passion for its space runs as deep as ours and this partnership will allow hosts of all kinds access to the most professional and well-designed invitations and the most robust ticketing tools available online. Start creating!

 

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