Designing your own postcard can be a chore. Without the trained eyes of a seasoned art designer, the skills of a prolific graphic artist and the insights of a professional creative director, you might find yourself settling for the dull, dry and amateurish postcard. A lot of detail goes into the development of designs for postcard printing, but hopefully this article can help you out.
Postcard printing requires careful designing and has 2 major parts: the front cover and the back cover. A standard postcard design is about 6”x4” length by height (landscape orientation).
The postcard front cover is where you place your main image. A good postcard front cover design is one with a main image that will make you read its contents and keep it. Try to stick to single lines or phrases when placing text or content to give better emphasis on the main image or its message. A messy-looking postcard design does not give justice to your name. Experiment with the colors to make sure that they don’t clash and nicely complement the image. You can never go wrong with a classic look.
You can also choose to have a bordered or bleed cover. Bleed means there are no white spaces around your postcard.
The Postcard back cover contains the mailing information, postage details and letter of your postcard. Take about 1/3 of the middle right side from your postcard’s length for the mailing information portion and postage details of your postcard design. Affix lines for writing the address and recipient of your postcard. This will help the post office properly and promptly send out your postcard. The upper right corner will contain the postage detail or the stamp. Separate the letter content space with a vertical line. This will mark the space between postal details and mailing information from the letter. You can add lines on your letter space to make it look cleaner.
Before running off to your postcard printing supplier, remember to proof your design for before printing. Basically what this means is to stop, take a deep breath and look at your design one last time. Take your time in scrutinizing every aspect of the postcard design. Read through the words and check the spelling. If you are satisfied with your postcard design, then by all means let the presses run.
Since you already designed your own postcard from front to back, it is time to send them out and proudly proclaim artist status. Either you’ve unleashed the postcard artist in you or had some helpful advice in designing it – wink, wink.
If you still want a super-easy way to get beautiful postcard designs and ready-to-use postcard printing proofs, www.mypostcardprinting.com has what you’re looking for. MyPostCardPrinting has a smorgasbord of template designs that you can have revised by their experienced graphic teams so you don’t have to worry about mixing and matching colors and elements for your postcard design. They can do it for you. All you need is approve the final postcard design. Again, check the spelling and other elements before going into production.
There you have it! Postcard designing made easier and super easy.
Neil Carlo Arriola, an experienced copywriter for numerous marketing communications campaigns since 2003 and has worked in cooperation with top-notch advertising agencies in the Philippines. Best known for creating eye-catching and compelling creative works, he is currently expanding his knowledge of evolving marketing techniques and effective SEO practices.
Image taken on 2009-04-08 09:42:27. Image Source. (Used with permission)
