[Design] Postcard for Stockholm, Sweden

During the “Visual Communication” class by Ms. Lee, we were given a mission to create postcards/posters for various cities around the globe. Having been interested in Sweden for some time, this seemed to be the perfect chance for me to broaden my interest in the country and make an awesome background photo for my phone: Thus, I chose Stockholm, Sweden.

I split the postcard into two: on the left portion, I wanted to depict the natural and cultural side of Sweden. So, using the “Shape Builder Tool,” I easily created the maypole symbol that is widely used in the “Midsommar festival.” Also, mountains were added in the background.

On the right side, I outlined the Stockholm City hall, one of the most well-known buildings in Sweden, let alone in Stockholm.

The finishing touches were done by adding texts in both Swedish and English, which delivered the same content: “Stockholm, Sweden/Welcome to World’s most beautiful city Where culture and development Wait for you.” At the time, I thought that the Swedish translation of the text shared a similar feature: just as the English phrases started with “W”s, the Swedish phrases seemed to start with “V”s. However, little did I know, there were a lot of errors in my translation.

I later made more modifications: the texts were cut and enlarged, improving the visibility. Also, to emphasize the theme of the lingual similarities a bit more, I wrote down “Sverige” and “Sweden” for the respective portion.

It took me another couple of months to work on it and create the last version of this project. Now, it was made into a desktop format to accommodate the size of my laptop screen. I made the letters more visible, redesigned the Stockholm City Hall, and added outlines of a few houses from Gamla stan.

I also made a version without any text, and I think it’s quite good. In fact, it’s my current background for my laptop.