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Matt Fons/4 min read

Designing the Back of a Postcard: Adding Guides, Text, and Images for Address and Stamp Placement

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Adding Guides, Text, and Images for Address and Stamp Placement on the Back of a Postcard. Watch this tutorial to learn the key concepts and techniques.

In this video, we're going to be working on the second side of our postcard. So let's begin first by adding an additional page.

To do this, we can go to the Pages Panel, and at the bottom, we're going to create a new page. From here, we’re now ready to create the page, and let's start by adding some guides. The first guide we want to create is right at 3.5 inches. We'll hold Shift and create our guide right at 3.5 inches. This is to distinguish the area on the right-hand side where we’ll place our address and stamp.

Next, let's add a space for our stamp. A typical stamp is a little less than one inch by one inch, so to give ourselves a little extra room, let's create a Rectangle Frame. We’re just going to place it on our postcard to reserve the area for our stamp. To do this, we'll click and for the width, let’s type 1.25, and for the height, 1.25, then click OK.

This gives us a little extra space outside the stamp in case we’re not perfectly aligned. We'll then hit V on the keyboard, and with our Rectangle Frame selected, we're going to move it to the top-right corner. We can do this by dragging it manually or by going to the Properties Panel. Remember, we can determine the X and Y positions here. Double-click and type 6 for the X and 0 for the Y, making sure to use the top-right reference point of the Rectangle Frame.

We'll close the Properties Panel, and next, let's add some text boxes. To do this, we’ll utilize the Type Tool, and I’m going to drag a Type Frame from one margin all the way down to the bottom right of this area. Now, let’s shrink it down using the Selection Tool. First, we'll drag it to the edge of the postcard, and then, while holding Shift, we’ll move it inward. If we hold ALT, we’ll drag from the center.

This keeps it spaced proportionally. I think we’ll leave it right about here—it doesn’t have to be perfect. We’ll release and now fill it in with some text.

First, we’ll double-click inside, then go to the Control Bar at the top to set the font. In this case, we’ll use Chivo, and let’s choose Chivo Regular.

Next, let’s drop the font size to 10 points. Since we don’t have the actual text yet, we’ll right-click and select Fill with Placeholder Text. Let’s create one more text frame. Again, we’ll use the Type Tool, and this time, let’s drag from the bottom of the stamp down to the bottom of the postcard.

Again, we can resize using the Selection Tool. I’ll resize it so it reaches the edge of the postcard, and then, holding ALT, I’ll drag it inward to about here. This space will be where the address goes. From here, we can double-click and type out the details of the address. We’ll type “Business Name, ” then on the next line, “First Last Name, ” followed by “Address Line 1, ” “Line 2, ” and “Line 3.”

This way, if there’s an apartment number or unit number, it goes on Line 2. Finally, let's hit CTRL+A to select all, and for our font, we'll again choose Chivo and Chivo Regular. As another element, let’s add the Domus logo onto our postcard.

We currently have it saved within our CC Libraries, so we have easy access to it here. Simply click and drag it in, and I’ll drag it from the bottom-left margin up to about this size. Again, feel free to adjust the sizing to whatever you prefer for your postcard. Then, we’ll hit V on the keyboard to select the image. As we can see here, it’s actually covering the text, so we want to fix that by selecting the image and going to the Properties Panel. We’re going to use the Wrap Around setting in the Text Wrap Panel. When we click this, we’ll see the text now wraps around the image.

In addition, the text is still a little too close to the image, so let’s add more padding. With all four sides linked, click the up arrow, and you’ll see the area around the image expands, pushing the text farther away. I think this looks pretty good, so let's click outside. If we zoom out, we can begin to see the structure of what the back of our postcard is going to look like.

Let’s now save our work by hitting CTRL+S on the keyboard. In the next video, we’ll spruce up the back of our postcard with some lines.

See you there!