21st Invite Design

Wait, so what is it you want us to say if you won't take any advice?

shouldn't an invite have a date on it?

Dragons, Daggers and Roses, is this for an ex-Sailor Tattoo Artist?

You need an anchor.

I think it's lovely and you shouldn't change a thing... but don't take my advice.

:)

Excuse me? I feel going to gay party if this is what you intended with this invitation card. I don't know who are your friends, sorry.

By chance, does Andy wear a lot of Ed Hardy? That's the look and feel I'm getting here. Turn back before it's too late.

I wasn't really hoping to get advice on the theme as that should most certainly be my choice right? I was hoping to get some designer's views for compositional merit and perhaps some tips on how i could alter what's already here to be a better design.

PS. qwertyale - i'm not 'gay' but if someone was then they might be quite offended by your comment.

cold, dark, informal...no date?

Strikes me more as a business card

Doesn't invoke feelings of a party i would want to attend.

Maybe you should explain who this invite is going to. Is it your friends? Is it a group of people you don't know very well?

What are you trying to accomplish with this?

Are you going to get it printed?

Is anyone going to care that the imagery is very personal to you?

The background is visually interesting. I like how you thought about where your text placement will be. However, I do think you should make the title of your invitation much larger so people know what it is for and treat it with a different typeface. This will make the title look more important and get people excited. I think it had potential but need more T.L.C.

Also, always have all of your information present on a draft before a critique and especially before the client views it. (ex. date, time, drink specials and location) You want to provoke a preliminary feeling of "WOW" for this party with the invitation. I would clean up the "21" design as well. Make it neat and more detailed. It looks foggy. Maybe hold off on using so many drop shadows.

Thanks for the feedback Cameron and megAgraphics. To answer a few questions: My target audience with this is all my family and friends, i want it to convey a sophisticated yet lively night. I wanted to avoid the usual concepts of parties (ie. balloons, cake) as this is a party celebrating the leaving behind of childhood and becoming a man. I am going to get this printed litho as a freebie from a printer. The whole invite is actually double sided, the reverse using the same '21' logo except it is fully black on a plain white background. The start time/date along with dress code is in the Times font centered in the remaining space (i will try and attach it to this thread when i get back to my work Mac).
Also the comment on the blurry 21, i think the reason for this is because of the low res image i had to create so that it would upload to this thread. The actual artwork is very high res and the detail on the 21 is crisp and sharp. I will take another look at the drop shadows to see if i can clean it up at all.