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Monday, December 26, 2011

Culture in Postcards

There are countless different types of postcards produced by commercial printing companies nowadays and these include but are not limited to products like photo postcards and wedding postcards. Now each of these sheets of paper and card are not only tools used by different businesses and companies in promoting their trade (although this is one major aspect); what is interesting is that depending on the country or the general area where a specific postcard is printed and sold, there are lots of things that a person can learn from the postcard regarding the culture, traditions, history, and other facts about a certain place. This is because with postcard printing, the postcard templates are designed so that the final product will perfectly fit a certain area.

High quality printing is not only concerned with the colors and paper quality of a postcard. It is also equally concerned with including relevant content, even if a postcard only contains so little. Especially in tourist destinations, postcards are imbued with certain cultural touches that help people learn just a bit more. One example of the things that can be included in postcards is illustrations and short descriptions of festivals and celebrations that are regularly held in a certain town or city. This intrigues people and makes them want to experience the cultural celebrations first hand, which is definitely a good example of effective postcard printing marketing.

Another, and perhaps more common, example is the use of famous landmarks-both natural and man-made-that a place is famous for. With this particular example, text is significantly less important as compared to the pictures and illustrations, because it would take a well-shot and well-edited picture to make customers want to see it for themselves. Just by looking at these pictures, people who receive the postcards will get a bit of insight as to how people in that area lives and what practices and traditions they may have.

Speaking of practices, there is also the more informative and text-based type of postcard which gives short tidbits on local mannerisms and common sayings in the local tongue. While a postcard cannot be expected to contain entire articles and in-depth explanations regarding different cultural facets of a community, it is entirely possible to give very tiny glimpses on how people act within the area. This is helpful especially to visiting tourists who simply want to do some postcard mailing while at the same time learning new things.

Postcard printing is not completely a matter of publicity and marketing even though it may seem so at first glance. Experienced professionals in this field are aware that another side of commercial printing is in broadening people's knowledge while at the same time holding their interests long enough to get them to actually buy products made from various postcard templates and designs. Culture is a topic which is oftentimes forgotten or brushed aside in favour of other more trivial topics, but it is good to know that a small printing product like a postcard is still able to incorporate this in some way within the trade. It may not be too often, but it certainly happens.

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