Sub It Club is thrilled to welcome Junghwa Park to The Postcard Post. I picked up her postcard at a conference and I adore it. Read on and see why!
Junghwa Park [juhng-hwa bahk] is a Korean-born immigrant illustrator. She graduated from BFA Illustration School of Visual Arts in 2014. Her illustration is warm and whimsical. Also, it is interesting to find hidden stories. She does not only show her whimsical imagination on illustrations, but she also applies it to diverse arts with her boundless craft skill as well. Junghwa is SCBWI Grand Prize Winner of 2020 Winter Conference Portfolio Showcase. She illustrated WHILE GRANDPA NAPS written by Naomi Danis and published by Pow!. The book was featured in the New York Times. In 2020, she authored and illustrated BUNNYBEE which was published by Who’s Got My Tail. Two illustrations of the book have been selected for the Chosen Winners of American Illustration 39. She will illustrate 12 DAYS OF KINDNESS written by Irene Latham and published by G.P. Putnam’s Son in Summer 2022.
How do you choose the image(s) for a postcard?
I choose postcard images that represent my style the most. It can be personal work or commissioned work.
Do you prefer text on the front of the postcard with the image or do you prefer all text on the back of the postcard?
I do not prefer to put text on the front unless I am very confident with my text design. Since I send postcards to art directors and designers, I don’t want bad designs to distract from my illustration.*
*Good point! The text should never overwhelm or underwhelm the art!
Do you create illustrations specifically for your self-promotion pieces?
Yes and no. Sometimes I create illustrations just for self-promotions if I want to use a specific illustration I didn’t create for clients. And I do also put commissioned work on postcards with details of a project.*
*We all love to see the details.
Some illustrators create a series of postcards and send them out over time. Do you create a series or stand-alone images?
I did not know some illustrators create a series of postcards! I do only created stand-alone image. I will try a series next time!*
*Haha!
How often do you send out postcards?
Once every 2-4 months. But I haven’t sent out anything since I started working with my agent.
Who do you target with your mailings?
I target art directors and designers who work in children’s publishing, newspapers, and magazines. I make separate postcards for children’s book publishing and editorials. For children’s publishing, I put one of spread of my books or dummies. And I mostly add a past editorial commission image for editorial promotional postcards.
How do you compile your mailing list? Any tips on keeping a list and sending out?
I have an excel file for mailing lists. I organize contact information in each category such as editorial, children’s books, and advertising. Then I list names, emails, addresses, and dates I sent the postcard.
Do you have any tips on the production process?
I recommend using Illustrator for design. Photoshop can be blurry and less accurate. Scanning is a very important technique. Even though you made beautiful art, scanning can ruin an image.* A common issue is the image is darker than the original art. If you use that image for production, it will look very dull and dark. It’s important to play around with Image > Adjustment to make the file look like the original art.
*So true! Scanning and the way the colors end up printing can be tricky.
Do you use any online services? What are your favorite places to get postcards printed?
Lately, I have been use moo.com. Their quality of paper is pretty good and I’ve never had delayed shipping issues.
Thanks so much for sharing your postcard and tips, Junghwa!
I encourage you to check out Junghwa’s social media and website (there’s a lot of fun stuff there including thumbnails of books). Here are the links:
Website: www.junghwapark.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/junghwart/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/junghwart
If you’re joining us for the first time at The Postcard Post, you can catch up with a general article on postcard mailings for illustrators and previous featured illustrators in the archive(there’s a tab above too). And you can see recent posts by searching for The Postcard Post on this blog. See you next month.
Sub It Club 
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