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Postcard Design Assignment: Overview and Goals

An assignment/tutorial for a beginning level graphic design course. It uses Photopea software, but the steps will work for Photoshop as well.

Uploaded by

Christine Moore
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66 views6 pages

Postcard Design Assignment: Overview and Goals

An assignment/tutorial for a beginning level graphic design course. It uses Photopea software, but the steps will work for Photoshop as well.

Uploaded by

Christine Moore
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Postcard Design Assignment

Overview and Goals


The main goal of this assignment is to start familiarizing yourself with image creation software, while using all of
the skills and concepts you’ve learned to create an attractive Advertising Postcard. The instructions are based on
PhotoPea.com, a free online image editing software.

Another important goal is for you to continue to learn how to work with text. So far, many students have not
put forth enough effort with typography and its effects. Type can be as important as images and colors to draw
attention and communicate a message in a design. Therefore, by skimping on text treatments, a designer is
losing out on opportunities for effective communication.

The instructions on pages 2-6


are for the Mardi Gras
postcard.

The Halloween example uses


the same types of features. It
includes three different
backgrounds in order to add to
the richness of the postcard’s
design.

By giving you two examples, I


am trying to illustrate that you
can use your own theme and
layout if you prefer.

Whatever you decide to do,


please remember that you are
required to have the same level
of complexity in the design that
you will submit.

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Preparation
Start by planning your design. Come up with a theme for the postcard.

At minimum, try to include: 1) a background image, 2) A semi-transparent shape such as the purple rectangle,
3) a blending mode or tint for the background picture, and 4) a WHOLE LOT OF TEXT TREATMENTS. Therefore,
feel free to plan your layout differently.

Acquire a back image from copyright free sources. Your image should be at least 1000px wide to begin with. The
following are examples of image sources.

https://pxhere.com ● www.pixabay.com ● https://pngtree.com ● https://unsplash.com


Google Images “Labeled for Reuse with Modification” ● images that you own

Main Steps

Phase 1: The background and semi-transparent rectangle.


1. Go to https://www.photopea.com. If you see a big X in the right, simply close the X.
2. Choose FILE/Open to open your image.
3. Resize the Width of the image to 1000px. (IMAGE>Image Size)
Allow the software to adjust the Height proportionally.

On purpose, I am not giving steps in a linear fashion. I want you to learn your way around the program.

4. Draw a Rectangle shape. Use any size and any color to start.
Notice that the shape is on a new layer.

TIP: The Move tool (Gray arrow at top of tool bar)


is used to manipulate objects and layers on the screen)

5. To change the size, click WINDOW>Properties to bring up the


Properties panel. Then change the width to about 300px.

A more freehand method is EDIT/Free Transform. Then you


can size it as desired.

As I said, you have freedom to change your layout, and I’m not
going grade with the strictness of measuring every pixel.
However, when I ask you to perform a very specific skill, it will
benefit you to try to at least find out how it’s done so that you’ll
know the intricacies of a software such as this one.

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6. To change color, the simplest way is to add an overlay in the layer Style dialog box.
Click LAYER/Layer Style/Cover Overlay. Then double click the color swatch.

7. To make the rectangle semi-transparent in the Layers panel, you


can change the opacity as desired.

If you don’t see the Layers panel, click WINDOW/Layers.

Phase 2: Layers and some special effects.


Manipulating pieces of your design with layers is critical to the use of this kind of program. Therefore, pay close
attention to what’s going on with the Layers panel.

1. Click on the bottom layer. It’s either called Background or Layer 0.


(This should be your main background image. )
2. Add a new layer by clicking the dog-eared icon. Note that the new layer
is on top of your background picture as shown on the right.

Explanation: You can barely tell in my final design, but my intent


was to tint the background image by placing a colored layer on top
and lowering the opacity. I chose to Tint the whole image in gold,
but it was too outlandish. So, I chose to do a Blending Mode to
subdue the effect.

3. Fill the new layer with the color of your choice.


It will cover up your image and make it disappear temporarily. Try these two techniques, and then settle
on anything you’d like:
a. Lower the opacity to see how it looks. Then change it
back to 100.
b. Change the Blending Mode to Soft Light. You can
make a different choice if you like. If it is too
outlandish, lower opacity again.

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4. TRY THIS! Cut out a part of your design to be emphasized.
In my design, I did not want to tint the mask. I wanted it to pop! Therefore, I copied it from the
background layer and placed it on top of my gold layer. Therefore, the mask is the original vibrant
colors. If you choose to do this:

NOTE: I created this video to explain how this is done.


https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cqn3cQ0hMp
a. Think of a part of your image that is easy to cut out (e.g. if it has hard
edges).
b. Hold down the Lasso tool and choose Magnetic Lasso Select. The way this
tool works is that you click on any edge to start it, and as you hover, the
selection will cling to the hard edges of the design. When the cursor gets
back to the beginning, double click to complete the selection.
c. Click EDIT>Copy.
d. Click on Layer 2. Then EDIT>Paste. And bravo! It pastes directly on top of the
original mask position.
e. Click SELECT>Deselect.

Phase 3. The text! THE ALMIGHTY TEXT!!


Keep in mind that this is one of the main goals of the assignment. However, I don’t need to bore you with step
by step on this because a lot of it is intuitive once you know where the main typography tools are located.

TIP: If you need to lock down your other layers temporarily, you can
click on each layer and checkmark All.

In the table below, I simply listed the features that I used. You are required
IMPORTANT to use at least 10 text features such as the ones listed below. They include
simple features such as bold and small caps, and more advanced tools such
as leading and baseline shift. Feel free to use them absolutely anywhere in
your design.

Start by clicking WINDOW>Character to bring up the Character and


Paragraph panels. Keep them up for the rest of the exercise.

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THE TEXT TREATMENT
Yourname Production Used small caps
Presents

Mardi I pushed the “ardi” up using Baseline Shift.

The embellished and embossed style is not available as a preset. However, if you
wish, you can go to LAYER>Layer Styles menu and play around with features such
as: inner glow, inner shadow, gradient overlay, outer glow, drop shadow, stroke,
and on and on.

Gras I used the same style for Mardi.


The gold streamer/confetti to the left of “g” is actually a PNG image. I searched
pngtree.com for the word “streamer.”

Then I opened the streamer.png in a separate file and cropped the part I wanted.
Then I pasted it into my main file.

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THE TEXT TREATMENT
PARTY I used Tracking to spread out the letters.
I used Drop Shadow, but manipulated it to get a “hard shadow”.
Click LAYER>Layer Style, Drop Shadow.
Set the Spread to 0. Control your Distance and Size also.

a Charleston Night I used the same small, barely perceptible shadow as above.

I used Text Warp

When you get into the menu, you must change “None" to something else.

to Remember Same as above, but without Warp


FEATURING For FEATURING, I used Scale Horizontal in the Character dialog box in order to
DJ Moore Funk increase the horizontal width of all letters.
For DJ Moore Funk, I used Bold.

To get the three lines I used graphic lines instead of text. Click and hold the
Rectangle tool in order to see Line tool.

March 5, 2022 @ 10PM Italic for top 2 lines.


803 Front Street Bold and larger font for the 3rd line.
$40 Admission Yes, even simple things like bold and italic help to create contrast and distinction!

Get ready to submit:


1. Save as PSD.
2. Then also save as .JPG by clicking FILE>Export to.

Submit
• Due February 25.
• Upload both PSD and JPG file to “Photopea Postcard” dropbox in OAKS.
• No need for writeup.

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