Around the World in 24 Postcards

A design note about a photo-driven travelogue of 24 places around the world.

A few months ago, I received a postcard from my sister who was traveling around Frankfurt. Receiving postcards always makes me feel awesome because of the unexpected delight that is usually delivered with them. On the other hand, it’s sad that very few people send them nowadays. As far as I remember, it was the first postcard that I got during the last couple of years; and she seems to be the last one who still sends me postcards.

While designing Around the World in 24 Hours, my goal was to convey these same awesome feelings through the experience of this travelogue. As a result, the interactive experience of exploring images became to resemble turning a pile of postcards in hand.

The animated clock on the bottom left corner was another small object to reinforce the unity of the entire page experience. With the small clock at the corner, viewers would get the sense of chronological continuity as well as interactive fluency. Furthermore, we believe that the hypnotic hands on the clock will entice viewers to keep scrolling to the end.

I can only hope that humankind sends and receives more postcards with love and peace.

Around the World in 24 Hours is a result of collective efforts from a number of talented people at National Geographic. Vitomir Zarkovic is one of them, who also participated in the design process.