Postcard Creator

Building on my Milky Way natural scene creator from Design  Challenge 6, my final project is an interactive postcard generator with  the National Solar Observatory’s Inouye Solar Telescope as the main  attraction. The telescope is nearing completion in Hawaii. I wanted a  way to inspire and educate the public about the telescope and the Sun  while creating something.

Built in HTML, JavaScript, p5.js and  CSS, users choose their sky and Sun and a telescope. Ultimately, I will  add a factoid and the ability to choose either poster or postcard. I  opted for a “build your own” approach and scratched the random creation  feature. I think it works pretty well.

A lot of combinations  exist in this app but overall the interface is simple. And performance  is snappy. The sky background drives the overall color palette for the  poster. To that end, the identifier placard is placed once the sky is  selected. I experimented with randomizing sky gradients but in the end  settled on locking in more natural looking gradients. I think the  remaining sky backgrounds, especially the night and eclipse skies,  create a solid base to make some interesting art.

Because  this project continues as a possible feature with the National Solar  Observatory, I’ve fixed some things, such as the positioning of the  telescope. It was not responsive. I’ve anchored the telescope to the  poster div and adjusted position to accomodate.

I’ve created the  ability to add some sun facts and position if desired. It’s hard to  foresee all possibilities with the positioning of the Sun and telescope.  Allowing users to move this blurb into better positions seems a great  way to add some creativity to the project.