When the invitations start to rhyme

A young designer in Faiyum wants to make wedding invitations. Before she draws a single one, she sets out to study the field properly.

She is right to. Every card she looks at holds somebody else's mistakes and discoveries, free for the taking. Which papers crease badly. Which typefaces an older guest cannot read. Why gold on cream looks rich in the shop and cheap in a photograph. A beginner who skips this is not being original. She is being careless, and her customers pay for it.

But there is a problem she will meet quickly. There is no end to it any more. A generation ago, a designer in a provincial city could see most of what existed: the samples at the printer, a few catalogues, the cards that came through the family. Now every invitation printed in every city is a scroll away, and more appear each night than she could study in a year.

People respond to that in two bad ways. Some decide that since they cannot see it all, they will see none of it, and call it a fresh eye. Others decide they cannot start until they have seen everything, which means they never start.

The useful place is somewhere between, and there is a sign for it. A moment arrives when the new cards stop surprising her. She sees one and knows which older design it borrowed from. She notices three printers copying the same layout from two seasons ago. The cards have begun to echo each other, and she can hear it.

That is when the studying has done its job. Not when it is finished, because it never will be, but when she can see the connections.

That is the moment to put her own card on the table.