The mistake that costs five hundred cards
The costliest mistake on an invitation card is not in the design. It is in the information.
The date is written, but the day is not. The address has the name of the community centre, but no area. The time says "in the evening".
These get caught after the printing, when the first ten people phone to ask where exactly the place is. By then nothing can be done, because printing a card is a one-time job.
So it is better to fix the information before you touch the design.
Five things, in this order
| Order | What | How big |
| 1 | Whose event, or what occasion | Biggest, two and a half to three times the rest of the text |
| 2 | Date and day | Second biggest |
| 3 | Time | With the date or below it |
| 4 | Address | Normal size, but clear |
| 5 | Who is inviting | At the bottom, small |
When an eye lands on a card, the first thing it looks for is "whose is this". So the name or the occasion stays biggest. Next comes the date. People pick up a card and check it against the calendar straight away.
Date, day and time
Three rules, and all three save you phone calls.
Write the day with the date. The difference between "15 December" and "15 December, Friday" is that with the second, people see at once whether they have the day off.
Write the time exactly. Write "7 pm", not "in the evening". You have to write a time even if you know the event will start late, or guests decide for themselves when to come.
Check the Bangla and English dates against each other. If the card has the date in two languages, have at least two people separately check that the two match before printing. This mistake happens a lot, and it is caught last of all.
How to write the address so people arrive
Writing only the name of the venue is not enough, because community centres with the same name exist in more than one area.
What to write: the venue name, road or block, area, and one familiar landmark. "Two minutes from the Mirpur 10 roundabout" does more in that one line than a whole address does.
If there is room, add a QR code that opens the map. Almost every guest's phone has a camera, and then nobody needs to phone and ask.
What a wedding card needs extra
A wedding card usually has more than one event, and this is where the most confusion happens.
The holud (turmeric ceremony), the wedding and the boubhat (the reception at the groom's side) can each have a separate date, time and place. Do not write them in paragraphs. Put them in a short list. A three-line list can be read at a glance. Three paragraphs cannot.
And say which guests are invited to which event. Not every guest goes to every event, and if this is not written, people feel awkward.
Whose name goes under "invitation" is the family's decision, but if the person named has a phone number, it helps the guests.
Before you send it to print
Even with a right design, the printing can spoil it, and there are a few rules to prevent that.
- Keep the text away from the edge. After printing, the paper is cut, and the cut can be off by a millimetre or two either way. So keep the text at least 5 mm inside the edge.
- Run the background past the edge. If a colour or pattern goes to the edge of the card, draw it 3 mm beyond, or a white line is left after cutting. In a print shop this is called bleed.
- Print uses a different colour system. The colour on the screen does not come out the same in print. Ask the print shop which system they want the file in, and if the colour is dark, print a sample and look at it.
- Do not turn Bangla text into an image. Conjunct letters can break, so open the file and read it through yourself at least once before printing.
What to avoid in the design
The difference between a lovely card and a crowded one is restraint.
- No more than two fonts, one for the heading and one for everything else
- One main pattern, not three kinds of pattern together
- No text straight on top of a patterned background. Keep a light, clear area under the text
- No rainbow borders and no crowd of assorted clip art
Two colours and one metallic touch, such as dark green with gold on cream, works for almost any occasion.
Digital cards
Many people now send cards on WhatsApp and Facebook, and the size is different.
Make a tall card for the phone screen. Do not send the print card as a photo, because everyone has to zoom in to read it. Keep the text big, since many people will see it on a small screen.
And on a digital card you can put the map link directly. No QR is needed.
Making a card with AI
Once the information is fixed, the design work goes fast.
Put in the names and dates yourself. Then you can never print a card with an invented name. Write out the details, and then ask it to lay them out.
Do not ask for Bangla text inside an image. Image models are still weak at Bangla conjunct letters. Have the text placed separately, so that the spelling stays in your control.
Print one sample. Before printing five hundred, printing one and holding it in your hand is the cheapest insurance.
In the BanglaCodes chat, if you write the occasion, date and address and ask for a card, it makes one, and you can download it as a PDF.
For a wedding invitation you can also make a page to go with it. In the builder's templates, the "wedding invitation" card takes the names of the bride and groom, the events, dates, times and venue, and makes a page with the gaye holud, the wedding and the boubhat laid out as separate cards, with a map link, a countdown and a form to say "I am coming". Sending the link on WhatsApp is enough, and if a date changes, you change the page and the new one reaches everyone.
How to say it clearly so you get the right thing is written up in the rules for writing a good prompt.
Once the text is fixed, make an online invitation from the wedding card and invitation page and send the link to everyone.
If you want to make one yourself, open the invitation card making page or the aqiqah card making page.
Questions and answers
Is it necessary to write RSVP on the card? In Bangladesh most events have no custom of replying separately, so it is not required. But where seats are limited or a food count is needed, a name and phone number with "please let us know" is useful.
Can I put a photo on the card? Invitation cards usually do not have one, and leaving it out is the safe choice. A photo makes the card look like a poster and takes space from the text. It is better to keep a separate photo for keepsake.
What should I check if the card is in two languages? That the date, time and address are the same in both languages. Putting Bangla on one side and English on the other reads easily. Mixing the two languages together looks crowded.
How many cards should I print? Work out the guest count and add at least ten percent. Names get added at the last minute, cards get lost, and printing a second time for a few cards costs a lot more.
Can a certificate be made the same way? Yes, the layout is close, only the arrangement differs. On a certificate the recipient's name is biggest, in the middle, with the organisation's small logo above, and lines for signatures and the date at the bottom left and right. The paper is landscape.
Which file should I give the print shop? A PDF, and ask the print shop beforehand what kind of file they want, especially about bleed and the colour system. If you ask first, the job is done in one go.
Do I need separate cards for the phone and for print? Yes, and the sizes are different. If you take a photo of the print card and send it on WhatsApp, the text looks small. It is better to make two separate layouts with the same information.
What if the date changes at the last minute? Once it is printed, there is no way except printing again, so do not send to print until the date is final. A digital card can be changed and sent again, but tell the people who got the earlier one separately.
In short
- Five things: occasion, date and day, time, address, who is inviting
- The day beside the date, and an exact time, not "in the evening"
- An area and a familiar landmark in the address, and a map QR if there is room
- On a wedding card, the events in a short list, not in paragraphs
- Text inside the edge, background past the edge
- No more than two fonts, one main pattern
- Before printing five hundred, print one and hold it in your hand