Postcrossing Blog

Today is the day the new Postcrossing-themed stamps from Poland make their debut! Here they are, looking lovely in the hands of Monika (aka MonikMary), who woke bright and early to send us these pictures:

Don’t they look brilliant? 😍 This morning, postcrossers from Poland, Italy, Iran, France, Germany, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine met at the main post office in Warsaw today to celebrate this happy occasion and send postcards with the new stamps.

Soon they should be making their way to many mailboxes around the world, and I confess we’re very impatient to see them!

While we wait for them to appear in our mailbox though, we got in touch with stamp designer Agata Tobolczyk to learn more about her inspiration and creative process.

This is not the first stamp (or the first Postcrossing stamp, even!) that you’ve designed. How did you get into the work of designing stamps?

My journey into stamp design started in 2009, and ever since, I’ve been fascinated by this small graphic form. What’s interesting is that, outside of stamps, I usually work with much larger formats — for instance, when I paint, the canvases are often over 200×200 cm! So there’s a real difference in working on something as small as a stamp, and I really enjoy that contrast. I’ve also had the chance to design stamps for Luxembourg and Slovenia, and in all of them, what really fascinates me is creating a whole visual world beyond just the individual stamp. I’m passionate about how stamps interact within a sheet or block, making the entire composition more than just a collection of separate elements – it becomes a piece of art in itself.

What inspired you to create this new design for the Postcrossing stamp?

The Postcrossing theme has a special place in my heart. For this year’s stamps, I wanted to emphasize the joy and energy that come from sending and receiving postcards. There’s something really magical about how these little cards can bring so much happiness and connect people across great distances. My goal was to capture that movement and excitement — almost like the postcards are jumping from one place to another with enthusiasm! I focused on playful imagery and vibrant colors to reflect that positive energy.

What steps were involved in your creative process?

In recent years, I don’t sketch much anymore — most of my creative process happens in my head. I’ve worked with the Postcrossing theme before, and while I may have some old sketches from years ago, I haven’t been able to locate them! The idea of a running postcard actually came up during my work on the 2016 Postcrossing stamp (the one with the suitcase/mailbox). When I receive a new project, a few ideas always come to mind, and the running postcard was an idea that I’d set aside back then. Since I had two stamps to design this time, I approached it differently — I wanted them to work as a pair. Naturally, the idea of a joyful mailbox, specifically a red Polish mailbox, came to mind for the second design. One stamp is for international postage, where the postcard is flying across the world, and the other, with a lower value, shows a happy Polish mailbox. Together, they tell a story of connection — both locally and globally.

Are you perhaps a letter/postcard writer yourself?

Unfortunately, I must disappoint some postcrossers here — I don’t write postcards or letters as often as I’d like these days. The fast-paced world and the ease of modern digital communication have taken over. But I absolutely love the concept of Postcrossing and think it’s a wonderful way for people to connect. There’s something so special about this slower, more thoughtful way of communicating, and I admire how it brings people together across the globe.

Thank you, Agata!

We hope one of these little pieces of art will soon make its way to every postcrosser’s mailbox out there, spreading smiles and brightening the day of those who receive them. Keep an eye out for postcards from Poland in the coming months!

Today is a good day — it’s the day we get to announce that these vibrant and playful new stamps from Poland are scheduled to make their debut later this month:

Hurray! 🎉 Designer Agata Tobolczyk (who has also designed the previous Polish Postcrossing stamp) came up with this happy duo of stamps to brighten any postcard. They come in sheets of 12 stamps, and 144,000 units of each stamp are being printed in Poland by the Polish Security Printing Works company. The stamps will be available in post offices and also on the Polish Post online shop on the issue date, along with a fancy First Day Cover and its happy postmark.

The stamp launch date is October 26, 2024, and the community is organizing a meetup in Warsaw, where the special postmark will be available at the main post office. If you’re going to be around Warsaw towards the end of the month, consider joining the community in welcoming this new stamp!

Ah, what a party! 🥳 We don’t even know where to start recapping how wonderful October 1st was… The sheer number of postcards, gatherings, forum posts, and social media shout-outs was overwhelming in the nicest way possible — like being swept up by a wave of enthusiasm, shared by people across the globe!

Some weeks ago, we encouraged you to contact your library and organize a little “basket of postcards” for visitors to enjoy on World Postcard Day, and many of you did just that. From the US to the Philippines, Singapore to Portugal, we loved seeing pictures of your library displays. One thing I did not anticipate was that some Free Little Libraries would also join the event, with their owners putting a box of postcards for the library visitors to pick up. Whoa!

Also, lots of schools took part in the festivities as well, which feels extra special. For instance, Kosovo Post visited the children at an SOS Kindergarten in Pristina to teach them about mail and postcards, and invite them to send some to their friends in other classrooms. Imagine their classmates’ delight when a real postman interrupted their class to deliver those cards — so sweet!

Speaking of sweets, so many stamp-shaped chocolate cookies were consumed around here that we were permanently giddy the whole day. In our sugar rush haze, we hypothesized how cool it would be if one of the big companies that makes these stamped shaped cookies (or the ravioli we also consumed!) would sponsor World Postcard Day… what do you think? Should we give them a call? 😋

Sooooo many meetups took place (both organized by postcrossers and geocachers), and we loved spotting your group pictures on Instagram and other social media. Some museums also took part in the day’s events, with guided tours, workshops or postcard coloring activities for children. We saw a few commemorative postmarks as well!

On Postcrossing servers’ side, things went remarkably smoothly, without any major hiccups. Pfeww! October 1st always puts a lot of pressure on the algorithm, which has to frantically scramble to select addresses to send postcards to. So you might receive a few more postcards than you were expecting in the coming weeks, but things will slowly go back to a more balanced state. Over 96,000 postcards were sent on World Postcard Day through Postcrossing on October 1st UTC (and almost 105,000 across all timezones), which was the day with the largest number of postcards sent on Postcrossing yet! It’s not the first time we break a record on World Postcard Day, but it still feels unreal to see those big numbers… Thank you everyone, for making this day so special!

And speaking of big parties — today, October 9, is World Post Day, and also UPU’s 150th anniversary! UN General Secretary António Guterres has recently said that “The UPU is one of the earliest examples of multilateralism in action”, and we believe this is what the world needs right now: countries working together to foster a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable future.

Many countries are issuing special philatelic products to mark this momentous milestone, and this might be the case with yours, so check them out! If not, you can always print the commemorative postcard (available in different languages) to send some special postcards in the coming weeks or months. Print the postcard at your local print shop or online printing service, affix a nice stamp (bonus points if it matches the theme!), and voilà — you have a special card that celebrates the 150th anniversary of the UPU.

Happy birthday UPU, and happy World Post Day! 🎂

It’s todaaaaaaaaaaay! October 1st is finally here, the day in which we celebrate these little pieces of handwritten communication that bring so much joy to the world!

Maybe you can hear the smooth scribbling sound that thousands of pens make while writing on all those postcards, and feel the excitement in the air? Us too! 😍

Quite a few people started celebrating last weekend already, with many meetings taking place over the last few days, but today is THE DAY that marks the 155th anniversary of our favorite form of communication. Our postcards are laid out on our desk, stamps to one side and pens to the other, with a warm drink in front and some stamp-shaped cookies too — we’re ready to get this party started!

We hope the collective enthusiasm of postcard lovers will be contagious, and that many people will hear about World Postcard Day today! We also wish all the postboxes in the world will be filled to the brim with nice mail — it’s a good day for a walk or a ride across town, to drop postcards in all the postboxes you can reach. How many do you think you’ll be able to feed?

When you need a little break, come join us on this forum topic or share some photos on social media with the tag #WorldPostcardDay. We’ll be highlighting these throughout the day, and keeping an eye on all the ways that World Postcard Day is being celebrated.

Have a brilliant day, filled with postcards and joy!

It’s less than one week until World Postcard Day, and we can feel those pens getting a little antsy in anticipation… Are we all ready for the big day? 😍 Even if you are not quite fully ready yet, there’s still time to make this the best World Postcard Day yet!

Just like last year, we’re keeping the maximum limit of 10 postcards for each postcrosser to send out on October 1st. We do this because we only have so many addresses available on any given day, and we risk running out of them. :( So, how does it work? If you only have a couple of slots available, you’ll be able to send a couple of postcards. If you have 5, you can request 5 addresses. But if you have 10 or more slots open, you’ll only be able to send 10 postcards on October 1st. Remember that you have to send one postcard on World Postcard Day in order to receive the special “WPD badge” when that card gets registered… but you don’t need to send your maximum allowance. Please be mindful of others and of the limited number of addresses available. 🙏😅

That said, we really encourage everyone to send postcards to people beyond Postcrossing who might not be expecting them: your faraway friends and relatives, the children in your family, your favorite school teachers, the hardworking fire brigade, people in your local nursing home, someone whose work you admire in your community… Anyone who could use some cheering up or support is a good candidate to receive a postcard too! If you have good suggestions for potential postcard recipients, leave them in the comments — we’d love to know whom you’re mailing your cards to on this special day.

Dinah over at The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society suggested connecting sister cities on World Postcard Day, by sending a few postcards to your town’s twinned places. It’s a nice way to do some cultural exchange and bring distant cities together through postcards!

There are lots of Postcrossing meetups taking place a bit all over the world — more than 100 planned so far! Geocaching is also joining the festivities this year, encouraging its members to attend gatherings between September 29 and October 5 in order to receive a special World Postcard Day–themed souvenir. With so many events, it’s likely there is one close to many of you out there… so do take a look! This could be your opportunity to meet some friendly peeps who also love coming home to a postcard in their mailbox.

Another way you can participate is by taking some postcards to your local library, and talking them into offering these to patrons on October 1st! I’ve done this with my own library, and they were quite enthusiastic about the idea. And if you are in a school, remember that this is a good day to use our lesson plan (available in several languages) to teach a class about postcards, stamps and mail in general. Other ideas or photos of activities you might organize are always welcome! You can share them on this forum topic.

Finally, don’t forget that the classic dish for World Postcard Day is ravioli — they look like tiny postage stamps! Consider picking some up (or even making them!) before October 1st, so you’re ready to enjoy the day with a delicious twist.

We hope you have an amazing World Postcard Day, full of happiness, connections, and plenty of postcards! Let’s make it unforgettable and bring smiles to as many faces as possible!