Post Card Design – Photoshop Continued
Video Tutorials for Assignment #2 – Post Card
(Posted after class)
We will be designing a series of standard sized Postcards to promote and communicate the following messages below:
(You are creating 2 separate postcards)
1– A cause or a message that you are passionate about.
2 – An up and coming event that you would like to attend or promote.
Assignment Specifications:
Size: The final designs will be 4″ X 6″ inches in size.
Students should decide on the arrangement of the height and width. Will your postcard be a horizontal or vertical image?
You will be designing both the front and back side of the post card with the full intention of “snail mailing” it so space must be allotted for the address and postal stamp. The “send to” address area on the backside of the post card must be light enough so that we can “see” the address legibly.
Process:
- R&D – Research, research, find images! Gather them, Where will you find visual inspiration and research? Flickr? NYPL Digital Archives? Pixabay
2. Create a new folder in your google drive titled – “Assignment #2” – add those research images to your folder – Students will begin to experiment with various image manipulating techniques and styles to develop contrasts and visual interest. We will practice creating “graphic assets” with the object selection tool, the quick selection tool, the lasso tool, the pen tool and see what role Ai plays in this process!
Production:
3. Work on your post cards by creating a basic template for the dimensions of your art board. Set them up for screen: 4 x 6 inches, RGB color mode at 72 ppi. The Photoshop template below is already set up this way.
What images will you be referencing and using? Where did you find them? Are they free to use, if so, how do you know? We shall discuss!
4. Make iterations and variations of each design. Please don’t default to creating only one example for each post card. Photoshop allows for endless creativity, get experimental! Tweak the colors and the composition, please don’t settle for the minimum requirements, there is so much learning that takes place in the process of iterating! Make multiples, duplicates and push beyond your comfort zones!
**Are you looking for a photoshop psd. file template example to create along with, format and submit your postcard? (Photoshop newbies can edit and change the layers as you need to) Those with experience should make the template themselves –Click HERE
**Organize your Postcard onto one single art board (this is an example layout)
Look at real postcards before you design one
A postcard has to work at arm’s length, in a stack of mail, in about one second. That is a hard brief. Go and see how it has been solved.
- Poster House, 119 West 23rd Street, a short ride from BMCC. The best free place to study how one message is made loud.
- NYPL Digital Collections holds a huge run of historical postcards. Search “postcard” and look at how front and back were designed as a pair.
- AIGA Design Archives, free, no account, and you can browse by colour.
- Rijksmuseum and Flickr Creative Commons for images you are actually allowed to use.
About the images you pick: where did it come from, and are you allowed to use it? Note the source for each. If you cannot say where an image came from, do not put it on something you are going to print and mail.
Submission Guidelines:
When the assignment has been completed please save it as both a .psd & .jpg file and add them to our class google drive shared folder (link is on brightspace)
*Please make sure to name your files with your name – an Example is this:
R_Seslow_project2.psd
R_Seslow_project2.jpg
