Graphite Template — Complete Guide

Graphite is a wedding invitation drawn in pencil. Your cover photo becomes a graphite sketch that fades softly into the paper, framed by fine filigree in the four corners of the cover, with your names in an ultra-light serif on one side and the date on the other, its day circled by hand. A few pencil petals drift slowly down the page.

Graphite is one of Fotify's simpler designs: its look comes from one pencil colour you choose — any colour at all — and a paper, ivory, white or pale grey.

This guide covers how Graphite looks, the options unique to it, how to apply it to your event, and how it lays out each section of your invitation.

Graphite is available on every plan, Free included.

For an overview of the template gallery and the picker, see How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation.

What makes Graphite different

Standard templates change colours and fonts over the same shared layout. Graphite replaces the layout itself: its own cover and closing, its own section heads, and its own treatment of the message, countdown, gallery, story, schedule, location and reply card.

Signature design elements

• Your photo as a pencil sketch — the cover photo is redrawn in the browser as a graphite drawing: the edges and the shading become pencil strokes, fine diagonal hatching runs through the shadows, and the picture fades into the paper at its edges. It is still your photo — no AI redraws it — and it keeps the horizontal crop you set
• One pencil — pick it from the suggested colours or from the colour picker. Graphite draws everything with it: the filigree, the flourishes under the titles, the circled day, the petals, the small capitals, the buttons and the shadows of your sketches. A warm pencil (sepia, dusty rose) also warms the sketches
• Paper — ivory, white or pale grey, with a faint paper grain
• Fine filigree — a scrolling vine with small leaves in each corner of the cover
• A monogram — up to three characters you type, under a small pencil flourish at the top of the cover. Leave it blank and only the flourish is shown
• A hand-circled date — the month, the day ringed in pencil and the year side by side, with the time and the place beneath
• Falling petals — a few pencil-drawn petals drifting slowly down the cover (an option you can turn off)
• Whisper-quiet typography — Noto Serif Display in its ultra-light weights for the names, titles and numbers, with Work Sans for the reading text and the tiny, widely spaced capitals
• Always readable — whatever colour you pick, even a pale yellow or a near-black, the text, the lines and the buttons are adjusted until they read clearly

When to choose Graphite

Graphite suits weddings that want to feel quiet, personal and hand-made:

• Elegant and fine-art weddings — your engagement photo turned into a drawing on the cover
• Intimate weddings and elopements — a calm, centred page with a lot of air
• Garden and countryside weddings — a sage or sepia pencil, falling petals and a laurel wreath when you have no photo
• Vow renewals and anniversary celebrations — your story as sketches scattered across the page

Whatever the occasion, the photos your guests take matter as much as the invitation. Guests can scan the event QR code and add their photos to the shared gallery. See how Fotify works for weddings and digital invitations.

For a Japanese-inspired page with a brushed mark and a seal, try Wabi. For a single line that runs down the page in your colour, try Thread.

Applying Graphite to your event

1. Open your event, click Invitation in the sidebar, then the Invitation tab
2. In Design Template, click Change template if the gallery is collapsed, and find Graphite under Designs (it is listed under the Wedding filter, and under Elegant and Minimal too)
3. Optional: press Try it on to see Graphite with your own invitation details in the live preview — nothing is saved until you press Use this design
4. Or click the Graphite card to apply it straight away
5. Open Graphite options below the gallery to pick your pencil and the other options described below. Changes save automatically

Graphite works on every plan. On free events a small "Made with Fotify" badge appears in the bottom corner of the invitation; any paid plan or an active subscription removes it.

Switching to another template later is non-destructive: your event content stays exactly as you entered it, and your Graphite options are kept in case you switch back.

Graphite options

Graphite has six options of its own. They take the place of the standard colour and font controls, which Graphite doesn't use.

1. Pencil

The colour the whole page is drawn with. Pick it two ways:

• A suggested swatch — Graphite (default), Sepia, Slate blue, Dusty rose or Sage
• Pick any color — the last chip opens your device's colour picker, so you can match your wedding colour exactly. The colour's code is shown beside the chips

Any colour works. Graphite keeps the hue you picked and deepens it only where a line or a word needs it to read, so a pale yellow becomes an olive pencil and a pure red a deep red one. The shadows of your sketched photos always stay dark enough for the picture to read. A warm pencil — a sepia, a rose, a brown or a red — also gives the sketches a warm sepia tone.

2. Paper

• Ivory (default) — warm, like good drawing paper
• White — bright and crisp
• Pale grey — soft and cool

3. Falling petals

On by default: a few pencil-drawn petals drift slowly down the cover. Turn it off for a completely still cover. Guests whose device asks for reduced motion always see the petals still.

4. Monogram

Up to 3 characters at the top of the cover, under a small pencil flourish, exactly as you type them — for example your initials, "C&O". Leave it blank and only the flourish is shown; Graphite never makes initials from your event name.

5. Cover line

The small line above your names on the cover (up to 80 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("The wedding of"). Try "Together with their families" or "Please join us for the wedding of".

6. Closing line

The line at the end of the page, above your names (up to 80 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("We can’t wait to celebrate with you").

Every piece of text Graphite prints on the invitation — the cover line, the RSVP links, the section labels and titles, the countdown units, the closing line — can also be rewritten directly on the page: switch the live preview into edit mode and double-click the text. Section titles you have already set in their own settings (story, countdown, gifts, where to stay, getting there, FAQs) are edited in place the same way.

How each section is treated

Cover

One sheet of paper replaces the standard header:

• Filigree in all four corners and, when the option is on, petals drifting down
• The monogram (option 4) under a small flourish at the top
• Your cover photo as a pencil sketch in the middle, fading into the paper — or, when you have no photo, a laurel wreath drawn in pencil
• The cover line (option 5) in tiny capitals over your event name in the ultra-light serif. Long names step down a size so they never break mid-word
• The date — the month, the day circled in pencil and the year — with the time and the place beneath. The time follows the Show time setting of your invitation's cover, the date and the place follow Show date and Show location, and every guest sees the date you picked, whatever their time zone
• RSVP — a quiet link between two pencil strokes that scrolls to the RSVP form. It only appears when your RSVP section is visible, and never on a save-the-date page

On a wide screen the names stand on one side of the sketch and the date on the other; on a phone everything is stacked in one centred column.

Section heads

Every section opens the same way, centred: its label in tiny, widely spaced capitals in your pencil, its title in the ultra-light serif and a small pencil flourish underneath.

Message

Your message in one centred column under its label and flourish. A short message is set large in the ultra-light serif; a long one switches to the reading face.

Countdown

Every number in the ultra-light serif, ringed by hand in pencil like the day on the cover, with its unit in tiny capitals beneath. It counts down to your event's date and time in the venue's time zone, and shows your completed message once the moment arrives.

Gallery (Carousel)

Your photos as pages of a sketchbook, in their own colours softened a touch toward the paper: each on a sheet with a pencil frame drawn a hair off square, two to a row on a phone and three on wider screens (two for two photos, and one larger page for a single photo).

Story — sketches in pairs

Every milestone's photo is drawn in pencil like the cover, on a faint sheet laid a few degrees askew, with its date in tiny capitals, its title in the ultra-light serif and its text beneath. On a wide screen the sketches are scattered in pairs, the second of each pair set lower; on a phone they alternate from side to side. A milestone without a photo or a date leaves that part out.

Itinerary — the schedule

One centred list with plenty of air: each moment's time in small capitals, its title in the ultra-light serif and its place and note beneath, with a short pencil stroke between moments. A day heading (its date or label between two pencil lines) appears only when the day has a date or a label. Entry icons are not shown.

Location — two cards

• The venue — the map drawn in pencil (the map in greyscale, toned like the sketches; a pencil street plan with a pin when a live map can't be shown), then the time (following the Show time setting), your event location, the full address and a View on map link
• Getting there — your directions on a second card, when you wrote some

Without the venue's coordinates the venue card keeps its words and drops the map.

RSVP — the reply card

"Will you join us?" with your RSVP deadline under it, and the reply form on a sheet of the paper with a double pencil rule just inside its edge and a flourish on its top edge. On a save-the-date page the card holds the save-the-date note instead of the form.

Gifts, Event Details and Save the Date

These three sections share their structure with Fotify's other picker-coloured designs (Meridian, Thread, Prism and Duotone), dressed in Graphite's paper and pencil: square-cornered sheets with a fine pencil border, tiny capital labels, ultra-light serif titles and buttons in your pencil colour.

• Gifts — every registry, payment option, charity and wishlist item is its own card in a grid, grouped under small labels (with a count) when you offer more than one kind. Payment details sit in an inset box with a Copy button, and long account numbers wrap inside the card. Pay links, scan-to-pay QR codes and wishlist reservations appear as buttons on each card
• Event Details — a card per topic: dress code with your suggested and avoided colours as swatches, where to stay with each hotel as a mini-card (distance, price range, promo code, notes and a Book button) and getting there with an icon for each kind of transport. Your FAQs are a centred list between hairlines, like the rest of the page, where each question opens on tap
• Save the Date (Calendar) — one centred card with the title, the event date and Google, Apple (downloads the calendar file) and Outlook buttons

Closing

A flourish, your closing line (option 6) in the ultra-light serif's italic, and your event name fading softly into a blur toward its end — as the closing scrolls into view on browsers that support it, the blur drifts in from the end of the name. Then the place, the date and an RSVP link.

Sections that use the shared layout

These sections keep Fotify's shared layout and are dressed in Graphite's style:

• Photo upload, QR code, Table assignment, Playlist, Sub-events, Special treatments and custom sections

Each sits in the same column as the rest of the page, on the paper, with titles in the ultra-light serif and buttons in your pencil colour. Photos in custom sections are capped in height so a tall portrait never takes over the page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is my cover photo redrawn by AI? A: No. Graphite draws your own photo as a pencil sketch in the guest's browser, with visual effects only. Your photo itself is not changed, and the same photo shows normally in any other design.

Q: Which photos work best? A: A clear, well-lit photo with the faces large in the frame — an engagement portrait, for example. Busy backgrounds turn into a lot of pencil lines; the edge of the picture fades into the paper either way. Use the cover photo's crop to keep the faces in the middle.

Q: Where do the letters at the top of the cover come from? A: Only from the Monogram option, exactly as you type them (up to 3 characters). Leave it blank and only a small pencil flourish is shown; Graphite never makes initials from your event name.

Q: I don't have a cover photo. Will the cover look empty? A: No. Without a photo the middle of the cover shows a laurel wreath drawn in your pencil colour.

Q: Why is the end of our names blurred at the bottom of the page? A: That is the closing's signature: your names fade into a soft blur toward their end, as if the pencil had lifted. Your names are shown in full and sharp on the cover.

Q: Does Graphite work in right-to-left languages? A: Yes. In Hebrew and Arabic the layout mirrors: the names and the date swap sides on the cover, the story's sketches tilt the other way and the closing blur runs toward the left. The filigree is drawn in all four corners, and the cover photo's crop stays as you set it.

Q: Does the page move? A: Only gently: a few petals drift down the cover (unless you turn them off) and, on browsers that support it, the closing blur drifts in as it scrolls into view. Guests whose device asks for reduced motion see a still page.

Next steps

• See How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation for the template gallery and how to try a design on before applying it
• Compare the other quiet wedding designs: Wabi, washi paper with a brushed mark and a seal, or Thread, one line in your colour running down the page
• Let guests share their photos with a QR code: read about Fotify for weddings and digital invitations with RSVP

Need help? Get in touch through the in-dashboard help widget.