The diminutive size of postcards, compared to posters, actually pose more challenge to designers. Unlike posters with a liberal amount of space for leisure, the little space that compact postcards have no room for dilly dallying.

Designing a postcard may not be as hard as it looks. It's supposed to be nothing but a picture sized print you can easily manipulate. But like good photographs, good designs are hard to come by.

Postcard printing requires a more thorough and a more scrupulous plan for its design. Postcards need to compensate for its lack of size by attracting readers or recipients with its design and its color's' vivacity. Captivate audiences more impressively using colors that both communicate your message and impart a striking stance. Place the postcard in a more aggressive, if not, charming position to give it the upper hand against other media types. Postcards need to stand out from a pile of mails your recipients usually receive, or form other postcards as well.

How to make astounding postcards doesn't come in a snap of a finger. You can use templates and imitate various samples on the internet. But really, all you need is an understanding of one of the basic elements of what compromises a good design to start you off - and that is color.

Be it for personal use, commercial or business use, postcard printing's quality starts with your concept and your design. What offsets a lack of ingenuity in this "been there, done that" world, is to create and observe quality.

In order to create postcard designs that would make a dent in your recipient's impression, you need to carefully study, bit by bit, the use of colors, lines, balance, and perspective. These are just some of the elements we were taught about art. And now is the time to practice what we learned about colors.

Here are some things to start you off in creating an effective, colorful postcard design. Remember these key terms and take note of some hints and tips that will guide you along the way.

1. Colors come in a huge variety. More importantly, it comes in different tones and hues. By using one particular color, you can adjust its brightness and come up with a completely different shade within it. Familiarize yourself on how you can aptly manipulate and change the colors in your choice of program, do not be limited by the color swatches.

2. It is understandable that when you design your prints, make sure to use the CMYK instead of the RGB. The colors that you created or chose for a particular color mode will change once you switch to the CMYK. Moreover, printers use the CMYK to produce dazzling prints.

3. If you like a particular color so much, ask for your printers about Pantone. Pantone comes in a specific color that the CMYK may not be able to reproduce. Although pantone catches your colors more closely, it has a heftier price tag attached to it.

4. Experiment with the color wheel. This is the basic guide to show you what color works well with the other and which one contrasts each other even more. The color wheel will put you in the right direction if you are aimlessly wondering which colors to combine.

5. There are complementary colors for each basic color in color wheel chart. The complementary color of green sits right across it, pointing towards the red. Yellow points towards to purple.

6. Analogous harmony in color is achieved by using colors that are sitting beside each other. These colors closely belong to the same family, hence they blend together well. Think of yellow, orange and red leaves that fall during autumn. These three combined can create either a warm or festive effect.

7. As stated earlier, you can adjust a color's intensity by adjusting the brightness or the color saturation. Through this, you can have a palette of different shades of colors based on a single color. Using monochromatic colors, you can still achieve a colorful blend of hues that can be eye-catching for your design.

Practice may not make your first few designs perfect. But getting a feel for colors and training your eye will get you there sooner than you think. Now, all you have to do is study the rest of the elements and you'll be a pro at making postcards. Postcard Printing tips and articles can be found at My Postcard Printing