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How To Design A Postcard
Want to make a postcard to promote your business? How about to send as a sweet gift to your family and friends?
No matter who you send a postcard to, success rests completely on the postcard design. Whether you want to gain new customers for your business or want to invite your guests to your wedding next year, the quality of your postcard design makes all the difference. But how should you go about making postcards that will get results?
With over 15 years of graphic design experience under our belt, we consider ourselves something of an expert in creative design. We are here to share our tips and advice to help you make a postcard that will complement your postal marketing campaign with beautiful cards to be treasured for the years to come.
What Is A Postcard?
Postcards are letterbox-sized prints, traditionally used as a way of communication with friends and family over a great distance. Tourists would purchase travel postcards as a novelty to send back home. Typically, these travel postcards would feature a picturesque photo of a holiday destination on the front, with room for a stamp and a heartfelt message on the back.
In the present, postcards are no longer restricted to the tourism industry. Instead, a variety of designs can be seen, from family photo postcards to digital artist prints to business-wide promotional campaigns. Of course, travel postcards are still very popular, with some tourists choosing to buy, not just to send, but also to collect postcards as fun reminders of their travels.
Making Postcards: The Essentials
Getting the right framework in place before starting your design will save you a lot of time when it comes to printing. The last thing you want to be doing is creating postcard design ideas that cannot be printed or will produce poor printed results.
Having print-ready artwork is our number one tip for making postcards. Here is our postcard print guide:
| Size | 4inch x 6inch |
| Colour | CMYK |
| Resolution | 300dpi |
| Safe Margin | 3mm Inner Margin |
Download Your Own Template Of A Postcard From Aura Print
Making printer-approved artwork isn’t going to be in everyone’s wheelhouse. That’s why we have a free template of a postcard for you to use. For custom-sized cards, just get in touch with a member of our team to request a template.
How To Make A Business Postcard Design
In recent years, postcards have risen in popularity as a form of advertising for businesses. Due to their size, postcards easily fit inside your customer’s post-boxes, getting you one step closer to getting your ad in front of the right people. But then comes the hard part – creating a postcard design that stands out, so it isn’t immediately binned.
Standing out as a business doesn’t mean you need to make the flashiest design known to man. Quite the opposite. Your design must be an accurate representation of your business, the services you provide, and your attitude toward your customers. Deviating away from this will confuse your customers and lead your marketing materials to appear inconsistent.
Here are our 5 steps to making a postcard for businesses:
1. Understand The Message
Our first step is one that often becomes diluted when it comes to design - knowing the exact message you want to convey to your customers.
This may seem obvious, but countless postcard designs fall victim to losing their message along the way. Whether this is with the design being too busy or the call to action not being strong enough, not having a clear message is a turn-off for your customers.
Instead, pin down your message. Are you promoting a summer sale? Do you want your customers to know that you have availability for bookings? Is your business undergoing dramatic change? Have your message clear in your mind as it should then influence the designs you create.
2. Have A Clear Brand Style
Consistent branding has been shown to boost sales. Not only does branding help your company appear to be more professional, but it also helps you to stand out in the minds of your customers. The more your customers see your branding, the more likely they are to remember your company - which is great for generating sales.
So, how do you know what brand style to use? Alongside your logo, your branding should represent your business in a way that is unique but also reflective of the industry you are in. For example, a builder would include bold postcard fonts, with a color palette of strong colors like red and orange. An accountant, on the other hand, will gravitate towards a more traditional serif font and neutral colors like pale blues and grey.
Nail down your branding and you’ll find that your company will become more recognizable.
3. Photographs Over Text
We all want to see pretty pictures and examples of products before we decide to buy. If your company sells a physical product, it’s important to make sure that your customers can see what you do. As a gardening company, great postcard examples would include images of sheds and flowerpots to send to customers in the summertime.
If your company provides a service, it can sometimes be a little harder to get those much-needed photos. Lean towards photographing the results from your service or showing examples of happy customers. A roofer would show recently tiled houses and care providers would show their residents and staff.
Your customers want to see what you do, some make sure you have plenty of images to choose from for your postcard design.
4. Maximise In A Minimal Space
With everything in place, it’s now time to actually create your postcard design. Postcards, by nature, have a minimal amount of space available for you to use. This can sometimes lead to businesses cramming too much text onto the front, making it difficult for customers to decipher the overall message.
As you’ve already narrowed down your message in step one, it will be easy to avoid information overload. Cherry-pick the most crucial text your customers need to see. Who are you, what is your message, and how can customers get in touch are the main things to include. Everything else should be considered with caution, overwhelming your customers will turn them away.
Then, choose your postcard layout. This one will take a little longer and will involve having a play about with your text and imagery. Try different arrangements, sizes, and postcard fonts, until you find the perfect fit. Your postcard layout should be straightforward, if your customers need to put effort into understanding your postcard, it will just be discarded.
5. Proof-Read Your Postcard Design
Proofreading your postcard design will prevent any misfortune when it comes to print. Spelling mistakes and difficult-to-decipher designs will turn your customers away from your business.
Pro Tip: Ask someone who is not familiar with your postcard ideas to proofread and provide feedback on your design. If they can understand it then so will your customers.
How To Make A Custom Postcard Design
Personalized postcards are fun to send out to friends and family, or even to keep and add to your postcard collection. Whether you are an artist or a newbie, it’s important to remember that there are no rules when making postcards for fun. After all, making your postcard ideas should be enjoyable and not weighted down with restrictions and considerations.
With that in mind, there are some words of wisdom we can provide to help you along the way.
Choose Your Favourite Photographs For Your Picture Postcards
Photo collages are a wonderful way to summarise the year or special occasion all in one card. Pick out your most loved images to arrange on the front of your card, using a postcard layout. Simply upload your photos into a postcard example template of your choice and then have some fun with how everything is arranged.
Type Your Own Unique Message
Instead of leaving a blank space on the back of a postcard, why not type out a unique message? Printed messages are great for sending postcards to multiple people or if you are wanting to disguise your handwriting (think cards from Santa Claus). Typed messages will also ensure any addresses are clear to ensure that your cards get to the right destination.
Don’t Forget The Stamp
You’re going to want to send your postcards once printed, so don’t forget to leave space for the stamp. Whether that’s adjusting your designs to leave a gap, incorporating a fun frame for your stamp to sit inside, or even leaving space on the back. Forgetting the stamp may lead to parts of your design being covered up as it’s posted.
Print Your Own Postcard With Aura Print
Now that you’ve completed your designs, it’s time to think about printing your postcards online. With Aura Print, we have an incredible range of paper types and special finishes for you to choose from to create the postcards of your dreams. Take a browse through our entire range or speak to an Aura Print expert to learn more about making a postcard.
