A postcard from Paris

For our first assignment we had to make a postcard or a series of postcards. We weren't given any direction on what we had to do on the postcard - just that it had to be standard postcard size. 

For my postcard I decided to do a tourist postcard of the kind you could buy while on holiday in Paris to send home to your family or friends. I chose to do a large letter style postcard because I particularly like this style of design. Large letter style postcards - so I am told - are where the images are inside the letters of a word.

This style of postcard could easily be adapted to a different theme; I picked Paris for practical reasons. The word Paris is short (only 5 letters) and fits easily on a postcard, while still allowing the individual letters to be large enough to see the images inside them. Additionally, it was easy to find suitable images of Paris as it’s such a well known and popular tourist location. (All images used in this assignment are from Wikimedia Commons and are credited below).

Initially I made the postcard on a white background and after doing so thought that it might look as good or better on a black background and so I made a second version of it.

In both postcards, each letter of the word Paris has a photo attached to it with a clipping mask. I wanted to make sure that my postcard would contain some highly recognizable images so I started with the Eiffel Tower and then followed that with the Arc de Triomphe. Once these two were happily matched to a letter that worked for them, I found other photos to fill the remaining letters.

I have chosen different text effects for the word Paris on the second postcard because the effects I used on the white postcard would not have been effective on a black background. Switching the font (for the "City of Lights" line) and adjusting the layout slightly was simply to try something different.

Originally I couldn't decide which version I prefer, but I've finally decided that the white versions wins (by a hair).

But what do you think?  Do you agree with me, or do you prefer the black postcard?

Jess :-)

ps. Click on either of the two images above to see a larger version of them.

Image Credits

1. Pont Neuf at Sunset by Steve, CC: BY-SA, sourced from Wikimedia Commons 

2. EiffelTower from north Avenue de New York, Aug 2010 by Julie Anne Workman, CC: BY-SA, sourced from Wikimedia Commons

3. Arc Triomphe by Benh LIEU SONG, CC: BY-SA, sourced from Wikimedia Commons

4. Sacre-coeur-paris by MykReeve, CC: BY-SA, sourced from Wikimedia Commons

5. Le Louvre – Aile Richelieu by Gloumouth1, CC: BY-SA, sourced from Wikimedia Commons