So, I was going about my business the other day when a customer emails me to thank me for all the wonderful feedback she’s been receiving after sending out her Romance Managed wedding invitations we did for her. (Yay!)
She also shared with me her discovery of an Etsy seller who at first glance appears to have copied our invitation verbatim, and is selling the design (mind, the ONLY item for sale in this person’s shop) as a downloadable Photoshop file. A DIY print at home Harry Potter Marauder’s Map wedding invitation, for $15.00.
As you can imagine, I was fairly fuming.
I studied the seller’s photos more closely to see that my exact layout had been copied, save for a few fonts and a few graphics which obviously didn’t match each other or the overall design. It’s likely they were taken from a free vector graphics site, or clip art from somewhere. But the wording content is probably 90% copied from ours, as far as I can tell.
(the top gallery is our design, below is the copy)
I realize my original design is certainly inspired by the fictional map as represented by the actual prop, which is copyrighted property of Warner Bros Studios. The actual replica prop features the Hogwarts school floor plan, character names, and other iconic locations from the film, none of which are mentioned in my design as they are owned by Warner Bros. (If you’re looking for the official replica, you can purchase it from places like Barnes & Noble.)
I took inspiration from the prop’s layout and changed/simplified it into one that works more practically for a wedding invitation — a task that was quite involved I have to say! It required studying images and videos of the paper folding in action, lots of measuring, lots of mock up creations, lots of trial and error with the simplification process, and working wedding-related content into a comprehensible and readable format within the design, as well as careful copy writing to include phrases that evoke a magical world without copying them verbatim.
The entirety of my hard work in that last paragraph was completely STOLEN by this Etsy seller. Rather than designing their own folding map inspired by the fictional one (which I would have no problem with), they clearly copied our product.
Additionally, the seller admits to having found the work elsewhere to copy and represent as their own! By saying you can “Save HUNDREDS of dollars on the invitation you’ve been wishing for by having these printed and doing it all yourself,” and, “I’m here to offer some things I’ve made that I thought were really cool or too pricey to get else where so I made them myself.” I’m not sure why that would be smart to include in one’s shop profile, but to each their own I suppose. To me it’s obvious this person has (at most) very little wedding invitation design experience, as they should have considered the cost of what “having these printed” actually means, because it seems avoiding the steep cost is the main selling point of the impostor item.
I, of course, motivated to prove the truth in point, will show you what “having these printed” means exactly :•) Time for a little behind-the-scenes of Paper Truly!
The local printing company I use for all of our invitation products is professional and wonderful to work with. I researched carefully before finding them, and to my satisfaction, the practicality of their pricing model was an added bonus, for me and for my customers. There’s no telling who this other seller recommends as far as printers go, they may have experience, they may not. Being that this impostor item is the only thing related to graphic design that I was able to find after searching the individual’s name on the internet, I’m going with not much experience with the printing business.
So… if you wanted to order the full suite for this invitation, it would include the illustrated folding map invitation with insert, rsvp card, outer envelope, ribbon, wax, RSVP postage, invite postage, and guest+return addressing. Let’s look at the costs:
Paper Truly : 100 qty = $940.00
This is our “DIY” option, where assembly is NOT included, though our custom design and project management fee is included, as well as shipping. We offer the self assembly option to help folks fit a budget and still be able to get the very highest quality product (as far as materials, inks, papers, etc. are concerned… and frankly they’re getting some pretty dedicated customer service with that, too.) This is the only option that includes a custom illustration using your own words to tell the unique story of you and your spouse-to-be!
Kinkos : 100 qty = $1,895.00 (!)
(When you read Kinko’s, read: “Any 1-stop style printing supplier like Office Depot, Kwik Kopy, Staples, etc.”) These “chain” types of printers do not offer customized services and exist mostly for basic business solutions like banners, business cards, posters and the like. They do not have specialized equipment for reducing per-unit pricing. However, I was seriously appalled when I got this price from Kinko’s this morning! I was thinking, okay maybe they’ll be like $100-$200 more than what I offer? But their limitations are such that… well, this!
Anything larger than a tabloid sheet automatically gets a $7.25/sq. ft. price slapped onto it which basically triples just the printing cost for the map portion alone. They also do not wrap trimming and scoring into their pricing. Trimming isn’t as much an issue since they can stack everything of same-size and trim the entire stack at .50 per trim. However they can only score (create a crease for the fold lines) one sheet at a time, charging .10 per score. These shops are definitely not worth it if you’ve DIY’d your design and are looking for some way to produce the design onto paper.
Also, because of the sizing and their printer processes, they can’t take customer provided paper, so you’re stuck with laser paper rather than a nice Parchment sheet that fits the theme. And, at least with Kinko’s, their large format printer can’t print the larger map sheet double sided, as it needs to be with this design, so… sorry.
Printing at Home : 100 qty = $560.00
“Yeah! Now that’s more like the pricing I’m looking for,” says customer who isn’t quite sure what printing at home really entails. I was actually surprised at this cost, too. I thought it’d be much cheaper since you’re not paying the overhead a printing company would include with their pricing models. There’s a LOT more legwork (read: headache) if you’re doing the entire project from home, though it might be worth it to the extreme saver. Extra work includes buying the paper (the above cost uses 12 packs of 11×17 parchment paper from Hobby Lobby which is $100 just for paper, but since it doesn’t come larger than 11×17 you’ll have to split the longest map piece into 2, and seam them together with glue. Also one of those pieces is 2 sided. Good luck trying to get the two sides to match exactly on a home printer (because the matching really matters in the alignment of this design in the end). But with a little trial and error, you might figure it out. Though, with this impostor item, it doesn’t look like they did, quite.
Extra work also includes buying 2-3 ink cartridges at approx $35 each – probably more like 3 because the ink will start getting light toward the end and you’ll want all pieces to be consistent. Trimming and scoring is the biggest headache with doing this design (or any unusually sized design like this) 100% yourself. I have personal experience with this in my pre-Paper Truly days in college, slicing up my table tops and hands with x-acto blades. Though you could forego the x-acto blade and buy a trimmer for $30 or so (for a cheapy one, like the rotary wheel kind), but they tend not to be as accurate so you probably should print off a bunch extra of each piece in case things go wrong. Then there’s scoring the folds. You’ll need a scoring board with bone folder, or a scoring tool with a ruler. This is just more tedious than you’d care to read more about. But do remember to score first then trim, because the edges of the design that get cut off would need to include the score guides so you know where they go.
How long does all of that take for each piece? Well, I tried it myself, and it took me about 2 and a half minutes per invite + RSVP, or an estimated 250 minutes for 100 pieces. If you’re going this route, I suggest you dust off your copies of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone AND Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. If you’re lucky, you might be ready to start the actual assembly sometime before Harry finds Tom Riddle’s diary.
All of this happens of course BEFORE the actual invitation assembly (folding, ribboning, waxing, stuffing, etc.). In my studio we have 3 lovely ladies who work on this for me, and for a 100 qty order, all of this takes probably 3-4 hours (or 9-12 hours for one person) JUST for the assembly. So if you were printing at home and assembling by yourself, that puts you somewhere into the second hour of Deathly Hallows, part 1, if you’ve been watching your Harry Potter discs all this time. And that’s if everything goes perfectly.
Ultimately, one could do as they please with whatever method suits them best. I just thought it was curious, and somewhat shocking, how the pricing actually works out for each method.
As far as this particular item is concerned, though I’m flattered someone admired my work enough to study and copy it so closely, I don’t think this is an appropriate way to do business. I think it’s a rather cheap stunt to pull, and it makes me sad that people are so quick to dash their integrity for an extra buck. Truthfulness is a characteristic that certainly makes a highly successful business, and is the foundation of any good relationship between a customer and a vendor. I have to believe that a customer would much prefer this type of relationship; they would in fact cherish it as uniquely refreshing, in this copy/paste, slap a price on it, quantity-over-quality age. I’m sure.
~ Melissa