Whether dark and moody or pale and unique, botanical designs are always beautiful and party-appropriate. Download these FREE invitations now!
These FREE invite templates are perfect for birthday parties, celebrations, engagement gatherings, or baby showers. Versatile and simple to adapt with your own text content, there are four styles to choose from, varying from deep, dark botanicals to light and breezy tropical-inspired designs. Scroll down to download your freebie and discover how-to tutorials for editing your templates in Adobe InDesign or for creating quick online designs using Shutterstock Editor.
What’s Included in Your FREE Summer Invitation Bundle
This FREE downloadable template bundle contains four unique template designs for both printable invitations and digital invitations for email or social media sharing. Each design can be edited using Adobe InDesign and comes complete with image suggestions from the Shutterstock library. Plus you’ll find FREE font suggestions, helping you to adapt your chosen invitation design with your own choice of text.
Each template is provided as an editable Adobe InDesign file for using in versions CC and older versions, too (CS4, CS5, and CS6).
If you’re not an InDesign user, don’t fret! You’ll find a quick tutorial for how to create your invitations using our FREE Shutterstock Editor at the bottom of the page.
Preview the Summer Invitation Templates Freebie
Each template uses beautiful botanical photography to give your invitations a summery floral theme. Whether you’re planning a stylish evening affair or a fun-filled daytime gathering, there are dark or light designs to choose from, to help get your guests into the party spirit.
Each design uses suggested images from the Shutterstock library, with blend effects, layers, and background colors all set up for you in InDesign. All you need to do is open the template, replace the watermarked images with high-resolution versions, and download the suggested free fonts.
Below are demos of the printable designs that use photos taken from the Shutterstock library, each of which help to give the design a unique mood. Sized to a standard 5 x 7 inches, they’re easy to print at home, online, or at a local printshop. Plus, these templates use FREE fonts—Picadilly and EB Garamond.
You’ll also find digital versions of these designs in your download. These are sized to 1080 x 1080 pixels, making them ideal for Instagram posts, WhatsApp images, or sharing over email as JPEGs.
These are also provided as editable InDesign files—scroll down to learn how to edit your digital invites in a few quick and simple steps.
Simply click the button below to download your freebie pack. Double-click the ZIP file to unpackage its contents.
Inside the ZIP file, you’ll find two folders. One contains templates for Print Invites, sized to 5 x 7 inches, and one holds templates for Digital Invites, sized to 1080 x 1080 pixels. Each folder contains Adobe InDesign (INDD and IDML), plus preview JPEG and PDF versions.
This FREE download includes a coupon that gives you a 15% off discount on Shutterstock images and footage.
DOWNLOAD THE FREE SUMMER INVITATION BUNDLE HERE
By downloading this FREE pack, you agree not to resell or redistribute these assets.
How to Edit Your Invitation Templates Using Adobe InDesign
You can edit both the print and digital templates using Adobe InDesign. If you’d rather create an invitation design using a FREE online tool like Shutterstock Editor, scroll down for the second tutorial.
Step 1
Before you begin, make sure you’ve downloaded the relevant fonts and images to use on your template. A list of links for these are provided with your download.
Install the fonts onto your computer and save the images to a folder you can easily locate.
Step 2
After unzipping the ZIP file in your download, open one of the INDD (for InDesign CC) or IDML (for older versions of InDesign) files in either the Print or Digital folder.
Here, we’ve opened the INDD file in InDesign inside the Print Invitation folder.
All four designs are contained in the same document. Scroll down to the page you’d like to use for your invitation.
First, go to Window > Layers to view the layers in your document. The top layer contains information about the images and fonts you can use in your design. This is visible on the pasteboard—simply hit W to reveal it to the left side of the design.
Step 3
You can edit the text of your invite by clicking on the YOUR TEXT HERE layer in the Layers panel. Adjust the formatting of the text from the Character panel (Window > Type & Tables > Character).
Step 4
Your templates contain low-resolution watermarked images. To replace these with the high-resolution versions, go to the YOUR IMAGES HERE layer.
Select one of the image frames, and go to the Links panel (Window > Links). You’ll see that there are two or more versions of each image. There is an arrow next to the link’s name allowing you to view all instances of that image.
Right-click on the source link at the top of the sequence in the Links panel, and click on Relink All Instances of… at the top of the menu that opens.
Navigate to the high-resolution, non-watermarked version of the image and click Open. All instances of the image will update.
Step 5
All the image frames have blend and gradient effects applied to them to help them merge into the background. You can adjust the settings for these by going to Object > Effects > Transparency, or Object > Effects > Gradient Feather.
Step 6
You can adjust the color of the square in front and the background by clicking on the elements in the relevant layers, and using the Swatches panel (Window > Color > Swatches) to choose or create different colors.
Step 7
When you’ve finished working on your invitation, you can export it as a printable PDF or, if you’re working on a digital invitation design, as a JPEG image.
Go to File > Export, name your file, and choose JPEG (for digital invites) or Adobe PDF (print) for printable invites. Click Save.
For printable PDFs, in the window that opens, choose Press Quality from the Adobe PDF Preset menu at the top.
Under the Pages section, check Range, then type in the page number you want to export (e.g. 2).
Click on Marks and Bleeds in the left-hand menu of the Export window. If you’re sending your invitation for professional printing, make sure to check Use Document Bleed Settings, which will include a bleed on your PDF. You may also want to check All Printer’s Marks—check if your chosen printer would prefer to have these included.
Then click Export. Your invitation is ready for printing, so great job!
How to Create an Invitation Using Shutterstock Editor
If you don’t have access to InDesign to edit your downloadable templates, don’t fret! It’s super easy to create an invitation design using Shutterstock Editor. Here we’ll look at how you can create one of the digital invite designs, ready for sharing on Instagram or over email.
Step 1
In Editor, set the size of your design to pixels, 1080 W and 1080 H. Then, click Get started.
Click on the Background icon in the top controls panel to set the background color. If you’re creating a dark invitation, choose a black or near-black color. For light invitations opt for white.
Step 2
Click on the Shapes icon in the left-hand toolbar. Click on the square shape, third along, and scale this so it fills about one third of the canvas in the center.
Change the color of the shape to either a slightly darker or slightly lighter color, for contrast.
Step 3
To add text to your design, click on the Text icon in the left-hand toolbar. Choose Add body text, then type in your introductory text.
Click on More at the top-right, and increase the Letter Spacing to 140.
From the top controls panel, choose Inconsolata for the Font (or another font of your choice), and set the Font Size to 24.
For the main event title, set the Font to EB Garamond, Size 60, and a white Font Color.
Copy and Paste (Ctrl-V) the intro text frame, positioning this below the main title. Adjust the text to read the time and date of the event. Paste again, editing the text to read the location.
Step 4
Click on the Images icon in the left-hand toolbar. Type in the image ID of the relevant image (or, alternatively, search for an image of a flower against a black background). Click to insert before rotating to nestle in the top-left corner.
Right-Click > Move to back to send the image behind the small square.
Step 5
Click on Effects at the top of the workspace. Then, click Remove background.
Use the brush to select anywhere on the black area, which Editor will pick up and highlight in green. Click on the Remove background button.
Back in the Effects options, you can also adjust the color of the image using the Colorify slider. Here, I’ve slid toward a blue hue, and increased the Contrast of the image to 20.
Step 6
Copy and Paste the image, rotating it about 180 degrees, and positioning at the diagonally opposite corner.
Right-Click > Move to back.
Step 7
Use the Images options, as before, to search for a second image, using the ID if you want an exact match. Click to insert and position over the top-right corner. Right-Click > Move to back.
In the Effects options, Remove background as before, and set the Vignette to 100 to soften the edges.
Under Filters, you can experiment with different styles to see what will suit your invitation design. Here I’ve applied a Palladium filter to desaturate the green in the image.
Step 8
Copy and Paste the image, rotate it 180 degrees, and move to the bottom-left corner. Right-Click > Move to back.
Step 9
With your invitation finished, you can click on the Share or Download buttons at the top-right corner of the workspace. You can license your images and share the design over email, ready for uploading to Instagram.
Awesome work!
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