Our Monogram!

I never thought a custom monogram was possible for us. I coveted them from afar, assuming they’d be way out of our budget. And there’s no way I could DIY a monogram; I’m just not that great with anything visual. But then I was surfing the web looking for someone who could draw us a custom wedding map (totally frivolous and unnecessary, but Dave and I both love maps so we wanted to look into it). I found Pier Gustafson’s website and was totally blown away. Pier’s studio is in Somerville, MA, very near where we live. He does beautiful custom calligraphy, maps, and stationery.

I emailed with Pier to find out his prices and whether his work load could accommodate us, because I knew from seeing his work he’d be very much in demand. His prices were surprisingly reasonable (depending on the complexity and number of letters). I can’t even remember how we got on the subject of a custom monogram; I think he suggested that he could bundle the pricing for us if we got both a map and a monogram and I was sold. He asked if any of the images on his site made me smile, so I picked out these:

I also sent him this:

And this:

to give him an idea of what we had in mind.

I wasn’t able to verbally express my ideas very well, but Pier somehow knew exactly what we wanted. He was so nice and professional on the phone. Once we agreed to go forward and he saw the images I sent him, he turned the first sketch around in a day. Wow! Check it out:

I liked it very much, but I thought that the letters should be the same size (I guess in calligraphy the capital “E” goes below the line of writing so it appears to be bigger than the capital “D”). I also wanted to make the monogram more compact and narrower. Again, the turnaround was a day:

I loved how equal and symmetrical it is. I’m not changing my name, so a simple two-letter monogram seems perfect for us. I know we are investing in something we will continue to use our whole lives. Now I just have to decide how we’ll use it for the wedding! Anyway, Pier put his design into a software program, cleaned it up, and sent us the final product:

I was thrilled. Supporting local artists is important to us (Pier is one of the few designers who does everything BY HAND and then enters it into Illustrator or InDesign). So we got a fabulous monogram from a ridiculously talented artist who was right in our backyard! And I did it all over email (and one phone call).