PaperSpecsGallery.com Presents: The Make a Splash Invitation (Video)

"It's rare to receive an invitation in the mail these days—our invites for Taronga Zoo have become highly anticipated and collectable."—Steven Scott, Art Director/Designer

When you’re trying to rustle up the dollarydoos necessary for a zoo’s housing and research of a family of sea lions, it helps immensely if you can bring their personalities to life in your fund-raiser invitation. With clever diecuts and a dash of gold foil, Australia’s Another Colour did this wonderfully in their "Make a Splash" piece for that country’s Taronga Zoo.

The first thing you notice upon sliding the piece from its envelope is just how well the front’s gold-foil stamped typography works with the aquatic color scheme.

To watch the video, click here or on the video below:

Go on: lift the cover. Voila—a quartet of sea lions in various states of light-hearted play bring a smile to your face as their flippers go for your wallet. Continue to pull it open and you quickly discover that it’s an accordion-folded sheet that transforms the 2D images you just saw—via skillful diecuts—into three-dimensional sea lions that literally burst out of the page, each fold appearing to be an ocean wave.

Only when it’s fully opened do you get all the details about the Taronga Zoo fund-raising event. And in keeping with the institution’s environmental beliefs, the whole thing was printed by Sydney’s Burwood Press on 100 percent postconsumer recycled Ecostar Uncoated stock.

All very noble. But at the end of the day the success of the invitation must rise and fall on how quickly it separates you from your cash. And gazing at the diecut little heads peeping at you from above the paper waves, how could you not throw a few fish, er, bucks, their way?