This week I have been working on creating various postcards for my own brand. I took photographs of objects that describe my brand in the best layout for my postcard design. For each, I focused on an area of Photoshop FX.

Above are some of the alternative photos I have taken for my postcards.

This is my original photograph, I will be creating these postcards in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign.

The first photo is focus is on color effects. I adjusted the tone, brightness and levels of this photo and then applied my branding Pantone colors to it using a gradient map. 

Lighting effects were the focus of this photograph. I adjusted the levels and curves of the photo and used color replacement to drain the saturation of all the elements but yellow. I find that having a grayscale image helps me see lighting much better. I applied three ambient, low–lit point lights in Photoshop.

The third photo was created by using various Hollywood FX such as masking, drop shadows, highlight adjustments and a dynamic background with a radial blur applied to it. I also altered the background photo to reflect my brand colors, in order to make the whole layout cohesive.

I had a lot of fun with this one. This was designer's choice, and I chose to create another gradient map using different levels and contrast. I made the choke of the gradients harsh to give it a "topographic" kind of effect.

From each of these photos, I created a postcard that fit my brand with my logo, brand name and website included in the layout. Here are my results:

Out of all of my postcards, I like the Hollywood FX version. It is definitely my favorite because it has a clean look to it and I like the proportions of each element and the way they are laid out. Making my photography elements smaller allowed me to be able to fit in a shot of myself, along with a good–sized logo. I also like how subdued the background turned out, which gives a sense of hierarchy to the design overall.