The Postcard: The Aftermath

My Experience Making a Postcard with Indesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator

We have done and learned much in this class of graphic communications. It is thanks to the time we've taken to learn these things that I found this postcard assignment to not only get easier over time, but to also be more enjoyable because of the accomplishment one would feel after making the, almost to exact, idea they wanted. 

I believe that this exercise can be considered essential because it's pretty much a test. This assignment helps us to refine our current skills with both Indesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. This assignment, as with other assignments before it, helps to give us students free reign to our ideas while also helping to teach us about a different format and helping us to improve on our text wrap. The assignment can also be a way of expressing one's self while at the same time helping the student get a good grade for their class.

When it comes to the colors I used for the postcard it was varied, minimally, but varied. The most obvious color that stands out is the background color. The color that I chose to use for the background and the whole of the postcard is green. The reason I chose this for my background is rather plain and simple. The reason I chose this color to fill up the entirety of my postcard is because the color green is my favorite color. I figured thats since this postcard is basically a short biography about myself, then I should use my favorite color to express myself. The only other two colors I used for this postcard are yellow and blue. I used the yellow on the stars I created because yellow is the best color to use for stars. I used the color blue on the film roll I made because I felt since I used yellow stars, I might as well make a blue film roll for synergy. This is my own opinion of course.

I really only used one type of font for this postcard. The font I used was the Trebuchet MS font. The reason I used this for my assignment is because that I learned recently that Trebuchet MS is the best type of font used for representing film. Since I stated in this postcard that I wish to get in the film and television business, I figured that it would be best to use a font that represents the movies, hence the Trebuchet MS.

When it comes to very design of the postcard, I figured since this was my fist time doing this, I would go simple. Yes simple, but not crappy. I used the example on the professor's blogpost as somewhat of a basis as to where I wanted to be. I then used this basis to help improve upon, such as what fonts to use, what illustrations to make, and the overall finished design of the postcard. As for the design hierarchy, I believe it goes from either left to right, or right to left. It all depends on opinion really. The Illustrator designs created for this postcard are, as stated above, a couple of stars and a film roll. The film roll's theme should be rather obvious, while the stars help to represent movie stars. The images could help the postcard standout due to their design and color and they could be the reason why the viewers of this postcard would start from the left. However, should people be more curious about what I look like, then the image of myself on the postcard would more likely draw attention and instead the hierarchy would start on the right. Overall, I believe that my postcard matches my expectations somewhat. It's not a piece of art and its not garbage, to me I think it's simple and enough to portray the message I wanted to give.

The use of Indesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator was a requirement for this assignment. One of the reasons for this was already stated before. There are, however, also other reasons for this. The reason Indesign was required for this assignment is a big one. Indesign is a major, if not the most important, program for this class. Almost all the work that is done in this class is done on Indesign. It is with Indesign that we students are able to create our projects the way we want to make them. The reason Photoshop is required is because one cannot simply copy and paste a photo onto Indesign. Photoshop is used to help strengthen the visual beauty of the photos and images one chooses for their projects. It also helps to correct any mistakes that were made. The reason Illustrator is required for this assignment is because if one only has photos and images from someone-else in their work, then how is it even really "THEIR" work. Illustrator helps the creator of the project put their own soul into their work. With Illustrator, people are able to create unique designs and images that help establish that this piece of work belongs to themselves and only to themselves.

This was a really interesting assignment and I hope future assignments and projects will be just as good. I do hope they won't be too much trouble to deal with when it comes to computer difficulties though.