Importance of a Postcard

The postcard is an essential exercise in design communication because the postcard says a lot about you in not so many words. The colors you pick, the graphics you choose, the words you type, the fonts you pick all reflect you as a person, which will tell someone looking at it much about you.

I used the color to try and make the words pop. Because the background of my post card was a clapper used on film sets, it was black. So the words really needed to stand out against the black background. As far as fonts go, they have been my achilles heel this semester. I can never seem to pick out the right font that is me. Eventually I found the a good font that shows more of the creative side of my filming and not so straight edged or looking like wedding invitation fonts. 

I wanted my postcard to show my love for film. I wanted people to see my postcard and know right off the bat that film is my passion and they can also get a quick glimpse into what I have done. This way I can make a first impression without meeting anyone. This would put me ahead of the game.

Using the pen tool to cut yourself out to put on the postcard was difficult at first because I still do not think that I got close enough and you can still see some of the wall. I knew that we would have to try and cut ourselves out of a photo, so I staged a photo against a solid background to make it a bit easier, and it was still difficult for me. I do think that getting the clapper and the reel of film as graphics was a good choice for my postcard because movies, films, and television have been my passion for as long as I can remember and I think that it truly shows and reflects its importance to me if someone were to see it. 

Using all three applications, InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop was essential for this project because one, we should know how to use all three and prove we can to the best of our abilities. Two, all three applications do something different to photos, images, and designs, to perfect our postcard we need to use all three to come up with designs and fix our photos. If it be changes the levels on our pictures, to tracing graphics and images, to putting it together in one template, to see how it looks all together.  

The postcard was about us and who we are as a person. I usually hate talking about myself because I think I sound dumb describing myself and talking about my dreams and aspirations, but putting it down on this postcard that people can look at and get a good idea of me was a great way to almost introduce myself. As a person, employer, or anything. This project was not just essential for class participation, or an exercise in the applications we have been using all semester. It was also essential to as for the future. We can show this to potential employers and they will have a picture of us, where they can put a face to a name, and see what we are like before an actual interview.

This was way more than a class project, it was a learning experience, especially in the amount of time we had to do it, and it was a push forward for resumes, which is why I really liked this project. It is something that is going to stand out and that should be shown. This project showed that we can make something great in a small amount of time and that we know what we are doing in with these applications.

The postcard project is supposed to tell you about a person. The designs you create, the images you use, the photograph of yourself is all important because it is a first impression. It is an essential for design communication because it is all about you. What does this circle shape mean? How does it match you? Why did you choose that photo? Does it let someone know something about you? Communication is a critical point in anything that we do in life, just because we see something as an image and not verbal communication, does not make it any less important or impressive. First impressions are always key and I truly believe that this is what the postcards are really going to push towards.

5 Strong Logos

The first one is McDonalds logo of the "Golden Arches." What makes this such a visually strong logo is that it is simple. It is one letter and three colors. These things together have a picture in your head. You know it is McDonalds. That specific color yellow in the "M" always made me think of french fries, which may have been done on purpose being one of the many prominant things Mcdonalds sells.


The second logo is visually strong for branding the name right in front for all to see. Branding it like that and then having in connected to the check mark. It becomes one. Now, when you see a checkmark on a shoes or anywhere you know it comes from Nike, the name doesn't have to be there anymore because we know Nike is the checkmark.


The third logo is the Playstation logo. This is visually strong because of its minimalistic design and it has the initials as it's logo. Its design is clever and thought out of the box, there isn't much to it, but the P and the S are locked, but not touching creating, to me, an excellent logo design and an excellent market scheme.


The YouTube logo has changed a few times throughout its years of being active. Originally, it had the words YouTube in red and white colors, like the one above. But in recent years, they have updated the logo to this one. It's a clever logo design because it still has the same color scheme as their old logo had, but removed the words. So now when you see the white play button on the red screen, you know it's YouTube. When we begin watching a video, we click the play button and watch it on our screen, it almost represents what we are doing when finding a video, exactly what YouTube is for.
The last logo is one of my favorite designs for many reasons. The firefox logo has it nailed down to perfection. It is a browsing engine that connects you to the internet, which connects you to the world, which is what they are showing you in that globe with the "firefox" wrapping around it. The Fire fox can go anywhere in the world, this is the most clever logo design, with the perfect mix of colors. The fox isn't just orange, he is a mix of dark orange, light yellows, some dark reds, and so on. The earth isn't green for land and blue for water, it is two different color blues indicating land and sea so there isn't too much drastic colors throughout the logo. This logo was well thought out and definitely one of my all time favorite logos.