Paper Trail: After graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2002, Saima Khan put her degree in graphic design to work at advertising agencies in Washington and Baltimore. But Khan wanted to experiment with color, pattern, and texture in a way that wasn’t possible when working on real estate brochures. After she designed her brother’s wedding invites, family and friends started asking for their own invitations and stationery. Encouraged by the response, Khan founded Saima Says Designs in March 2006. In addition to work on personal events (including weddings for clients as far-flung as Hong Kong and London), Khan is now focusing on corporate events.
Invitation Inspiration: Khan is influenced by the culture of her native Pakistan, where she says everything is festive and colorful. Although many of her designs capture what she calls a contemporary ethnic aesthetic, she says she also draws inspiration from clean lines and “Zen-style angles” as well as more ornate sources, like French wallpaper and vintage posters. When it comes to choosing the actual materials, Khan is fond of using letterpress printing on tree-free paper made of eco-friendly cotton waste. “Most people think corporate work can be black and white and very reserved, but you can still have a lot of fun with it,” she says. Whatever the style, custom designs are her specialty. “We sit down with our clients during their consultation, brainstorm creative ideas and concepts, look at possible paper and format choices that would work for their event, and from there create a design that fits their needs,” she says. “Each event has a different story, and I try to tell it on paper.”
Intelligent Design: For a Comcast event located in a historic train depot in Richmond, Virginia, Khan created an invitation that looked like a train ticket, sealed in a transparent red envelope. “Saima's designs are creative and unique. However, what makes her stand apart is her use of textured papers. Our client invitations stand out as soon as they pick up the envelope,” says Stephanie Lee, a marketing supervisor at Comcast in Bethesda.
In addition to invites, Khan creates thank-you notes, announcements, and place cards, and works with vendors to incorporate her artwork into an event’s overall look. She recently redesigned the Austrian Cultural Forum’s bi-monthly calendar of events, creating a smaller, fold-out format that allowed the organization to save on postage while retaining all the necessary information. “We used her for our dance festival brochure and got very good reviews from our members. After that, we changed the whole system for our calendar using her designs,” says Enrica James, assistant attaché for the Austrian Cultural Forum in Washington.
