Christmas is in the air, which can only mean one thing – it’s time to start planning for a rocking New Year’s Eve party. Before you can start buying the supplies and decorations, the first thing on the party planning agenda is: a winning invitation design people won’t be able to refuse!
Whether you create your custom invites online using our free design online tool or your preferred graphic design software, there are a few essentials to remember to make your NYE party the event of the year. So, without further ado, here are our top tips for designing a New Year’s party invite.
1. Pick Your Size and Style
With modern technology, there are a tons of customisation options when it comes to invitation printing. Size-wise, we recommend picking A5 or A6 if you’re handing the invites out in person, or DL if you’re mailing them out.
That’s not where the decisions stop. You can choose from a soft and textured conqueror wove paper, a shimmering ice gold or thick, card-like premium silk for a high-end feel. The invitation sets the mood for the whole event, so think carefully about what paper you want to print on before pressing clicking ‘Add to Basket’.
2. Remember to Include the Important Details
The most important part of the design is the key details. As well as an eye-catching title (e.g. The Smith’s New Year’s Eve Bash!), you’ll need to remember to add the small print if you want everyone to know the plan of action for the night.
Uncertainty is off-putting, and can lead to at least a couple of no-shows at your party. To make sure you’re hosting for a full house, here’s everything you need to put on your invitation:
• Name (or leave this part blank and fill it in by hand if it’s a small party – it’ll seem more personal that way, which is always a winner)
• Time
• Location
• Your contact details
• If there’s a theme
• If there’s a dress code
3. Use High Quality Images
For professional printing, we recommend a resolution of at least 300dpi – otherwise, images can look blurry once printed. Dpi means Dots per Inch, and is a measurement of how many pixels there are per inch of the screen – a bit like how TVs work. The screen you’re using right now to read this is probably about 72dpi, but the higher the dpi, the better quality the final printed invites.
The key to high quality images and assets is how you’re sourcing them. If you’re copying and pasting, screenshotting or scanning, the quality can be dramatically affected. For best practice:
• use resolution filters on search engines to find the highest resolution images, then check the image file’s properties to make sure its resolution is 300+dpi
• use stock image websites such as Shutterstock
Finally, quality can be affected when you save your artwork file. If you’re saving as a PDF or JPEG, make sure the resolution setting is set to a minimum of 300dpi.
You can find more information and help for this in our Resolution Guide.
4. Use Winter Colours
Although our Summer Vibe template works great for barbecues on hot days, there’s just something about it that wouldn’t work for a NYE party invite – the colour scheme!
This time of year is associated with luxurious colours, like gold, silver and purple – we love to indulge in December. And although red and green are great for Christmas designs, we’re ready to embrace all of the firework colours like dark blue and yellow.
Our Christmas Party template is a great transitional invitation design. It isn’t overtly Christmas-y, but the golds, blues and pinks scream winter celebration.
Click on the image below to start customising the design.
5. Find a Professional Printer
If you’re going to the effort of creating a professional design, getting it printed professionally will make all the difference and show off all the hard work and time you’ve spent on your invitation.
Online printing with instantprint is affordable and trustworthy! And, if you get stuck at any point – from setting up the artwork file, to proofing and ordering – our team are happy to help you out. And not to mention, each piece of artwork you send to us goes through our rigorous 10 point check, so you know you’ll get the perfect print job every time.
Get in touch with our team of print experts today if you need any help with invitation printing with instantprint.
We hope all of these design tips do the trick and help you to create a fantastic New Year’s Eve party invitation that guests can’t refuse. We love to see your print creations. Show us your finished, printed invites on social media by tagging us @instantprinkuk or #instantprintuk for the chance for your design to be shared.