This month we have a creative duo to tell you about - Irene and Blake Martin of Sparkvites! They are a husband/wife team of two graphic designers that met in college. Initially they started out with wedding invitations and custom address stamps on Etsy in 2012. They were very interested in letterpress as well and started saving money to purchase a Chandler and Price Press. Once they procured this awesome tool they began their line of letter press greeting cards, which brings us to their main-gig at present. One of their cards was even featured on Buzzfeed!
At the time they were also working on a design firm venture called Spark Design Shop, so the name of their business is a combination of ‘spark’ and ‘invites’ - Sparkvites! The pair split us the duties involved with running the small business; Blake handling the creative design and printing parts and Irene does day-to-day tasks (bookkeeping, social media, emails, etc.) as well as continues to work on their custom wedding invitations.
Irene says, “we spend enough hours to call it full-time but we both have full time graphic design jobs.” Their favorite part of the process is making people laugh. They especially love watching peoples reactions when they set up for local craft shows. Fan favorites include their Llama and Chariot cards. You can find select designs from Sparkvites at our shop, or you can visit them directly at the link below!
