Here's a mostly† Xara piece, the third iteration. I learned a lot about this style of art, the Postcard, by looking at a ton of them over at Dover Publications.
†All the images inside the text are models I rendered.
06 February 2016, 02:31 PM
Ron Duke
Re: The American Postcard
That's really cool! I'm going to check them out. Do they have a website? (Dover Publications) I guess I could google it, huh?
06 February 2016, 02:57 PM
Gare
2 Attachment(s)
Re: The American Postcard
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron Duke
That's really cool! I'm going to check them out. Do they have a website? (Dover Publications) I guess I could google it, huh?
Hey, Ron—
Dover's server/search engine runs like maple in January (adjusted for Global Warming), but I waited and it paid off. Here's a decent link to Old Time Cities and Sights. Dover occasionally sends me links to free clipart, like this guy:
Now, you want to get nostalgic for a very rare item from the 1950s? People don't even know what to call them, which makes Googling them a little hard! "Liquid floating souvenir pens"; they'd have King Kong climbing the Empire State Building, and trains going back and forth, and all kinds of stuff like the Seattle Space Needle:
I love the look of those old postcards. Thanks for the link, Gary. That magnifying square they have doesn't really help much.
I remember those floating pens though.
06 February 2016, 05:34 PM
Gare
Re: The American Postcard
Quote:
Originally Posted by gray
I love the look of those old postcards. Thanks for the link, Gary. That magnifying square they have doesn't really help much.
I remember those floating pens though.
Just Google keywords "Travel" "postcards", and "Vintage". You'll find larger resource definitely. I mentioned Dover because I own that book and usually they'll give you free large clipart when you subscribe to their comparitively un-agressive spam-letter.
I think there was an art to the composition. It's not as easy as you'd thing putting photos inside lettering (Hint: use Futura XBold) and have both the text and the pictures be legible.
06 February 2016, 05:39 PM
mwenz
Re: The American Postcard
I remember the pens as well, including the Space Needle versions as I was there and we bought many trinkets at the time. I also remember the naughty ones...One can google the pens and find many, many sites.
The Dover site is cool. It's amazing what they have.
06 February 2016, 05:52 PM
Gare
3 Attachment(s)
Scoops
I did this for the Official Guide, but seeing as few few people actually bought the book, everyone else here might presume this is a new or a fresh illustration Attachment 111701:
Gare,your postcards are super cool.
I love the look of vintage art, many times I have wanted to do something like that but so far can't quite put my finger on what gives it that special look.,
07 February 2016, 02:35 AM
Gare
1 Attachment(s)
Distressing Art to go Retro
Hi and thanks, Larry.
Off the top of my head is dandruff.
Sorry.
Off the top of my head, there are at least two different ways to approach designing "vintage stuff."
1. Choose an appropriate image and then filter the daylights out of it. Ron Duke, did a beautiful piece of antique auto art a while ago that captures the experience of taking a precious photo out of an old cigar box right here.
This is an animation of an appropriately vintage scene (?) that was messed up in After Effects with special filters:
Alien Skin's Exposure plug-in also does a great job of adding authentic film grain, colour casting, and contrast to work. Half-toning adds a sense of Retro to work, too.
On the other hand, you can achieve a sense of Retro or Vintage simply by choosing your colors, fonts, and composition (and subject) from a popular period in published works.