Postcrossing Blog

Do you know a young artist who loves postcards or maybe you are one yourself…?

PostEurop (the association of European postal services) is celebrating 70 years of EUROPA stamps in 2026, and to mark the occasion they’re organizing a postcard design competition for young creatives — with winning designs printed by postal services and a cash prize for the artists! 🥳

EUROPA stamps have been around since 1956, when six countries started issuing them to highlight peace, unity and cooperation in Europe. Today there are over 50 postal organizations involved, and for this special anniversary PostEurop is inviting the next generation to show what “Unity in Europe” looks like to them, in the form of a postcard illustration or design.

The competition is open to young people and design students aged 18–25 who live in countries or territories that issue EUROPA stamps. Participants are asked to create a postcard-sized design (148×105 mm) on the theme of “Unity in Europe” and submit it according to the technical specs.

During the summer, a jury of international designers will select three to five winners. Each winning design will receive a €500 prize, be professionally printed as postcard sets on premium paper, and be showcased on the EUROPA stamps website. Winners will also receive copies of their cards, and PostEurop members will be able to use the winning designs on postcards during 2026–2027.

The call for entries is already open, and the deadline for submissions is 14 April 2026. You can find all the details, technical requirements and submission form on PostEurop’s website.

We thought some creative postcrossers might enjoy taking part in something that combines art, postcards and the union spirit, all in one go. Wouldn’t it be awesome if your design matches the design of 2026's Europa stamps, which will be a common one in all countries? Then we could make some super cool maxicards! 😍

The World Postcard Day postcard design contest is underway, and with a week to go, it’s time to meet the judges! They are the ones who are going to be looking at this year’s designs for the 2023's official postcard and have the hard task of choosing the best one!

First of all, we have Dietrich Wolf Fenner from the Berlin Museum of Communications, where last year we celebrated the launch of the German Postcrossing stamp. Dietrich is the head of the museum’s public relations department and has undoubtedly seen many stamps and postcards during office hours!

Wally Koval is the co-founder of the Accidentally Wes Anderson community, which brings together over a million adventurers, all sharing an appreciation for inspiring designs and architecture. Last year, AWA launched a popular book of postcards, spotlighting 26 special places around the globe.

Alison Hitchcock and Brian Greenley co-founded “From Me To You”, a charity that encourages people to write letters to friends and family suffering from cancer, keeping them connected at a time when they feel most disconnected.

Pauline Chrétien (aka paulinectart) was last year’s winner of the World Postcard Day design contest, so we thought it would be brilliant to invite her to take part this year, but as a judge! Pauline is an animation student in France.

And last but (hopefully) not least, me (Ana) and Paulo! Besides organizing the contest, we’ll also have a vote, and we promise to use all our postcard knowledge to vote wisely.

So there you have it — this year’s dream team is ready for voting duties when the contest closes a week from now. If you were planning on submitting a design, this is the time to do it — go! go! go! 💪

June is here, and you know what time it is… it’s time to open the submissions for the World Postcard Day design contest! October 1st is getting closer and closer, which means it’s time to ask all aspiring designers and illustrators to pick up their drawing tools and start designing the postcard that will represent this year’s World Postcard Day! 😊

The theme of 2023's postcard design contest is “Postal Hugs”, inspired by Annie in Wisconsin. Some years ago for the 150 Years of Postcards exhibition, she sent us a wonderful postcard that read “A postcard is a hug sent through the mail”. This simple mental picture is exactly how we think about postcards: like an extension of our arms, ready to hug a recipient far away!

Hopefully the Postcrossing community and beyond will be inspired to create something amazing for this year’s postcard, so that in October we will all be able to send a beautiful postcard all over the world!

Before you submit a design, please make sure to read the rules carefully. Designs can be submitted (in digital form only) until July 15 (UTC) on the contest page, and we’ll announce the winner until August 15.

And, as usual, there are some prizes! Besides the glow and recognition of having your design be the one that so many people will be sending all around the world on October first, we’re also giving away a fantastic Wacom One drawing tablet, as well as a Pantone postcard box. May the best design win!

Even if you’re not brilliant at drawing, we hope you’ll help us spread the word about the contest and poke your creative friends to participate… especially if they are aspiring artists and could use a little boost getting their career started and to put their art out there. We can’t wait to see how everyone will interpret this year’s theme!

Here we go again!

The calendar tells us it’s less than 4 months until World Postcard Day, so it’s time to start preparing for the big day. First things first: the design contest to choose this year’s representative postcard is now officially open!

The theme of 2022's contest is the topic that has inevitably been on everyone’s mind: World Peace. It’s in periods of conflict that we truly understand how important peace is — without it, nothing else is achievable. Postcards can be tiny ambassadors for peace, delivering messages of hope, connecting people across borders and promoting more awareness about the world and its cultures.

We hope this theme inspires many of you to pick up your drawing tools and create something beautiful for this year’s postcard, which will later be shared and sent to all over the world.

Before you do so, please make sure to read the rules carefully. You can submit your designs (in digital form only) until July 15 on the contest page, and we’ll announce the winner until August 15.

And, as usual, there are some prizes! Besides the guaranteed warm fuzzy feeling of having your design be the one to represent the World Postcard Day, we’re also giving away one fantastic Wacom Intuos drawing tablet for the first prize, and a trilogy of Austin Kleon books for the second and third prizes. We’re big fans of Wacom’s versatile drawing tablets, as well as Austin’s pragmatic and inspirational advice for artists (which really applies to everyone). All winners will also receive a Pantone postcard box, to round things up. YAY! 🎉

Even if you’re not brilliant at design, we hope you’ll help us spread the word about the contest and poke your creative friends to participate… especially if they are aspiring artists and could use a little push to put their art out there. 😊 We can’t wait to see how everyone will interpret this year’s theme!

Submissions are now open on the World Postcard Day design contest that we’re running together with our friends at Finepaper, and interested designers can upload their designs! So, if you’re artistically inclined, it’s time to come up with ideas that represent this year’s theme “Across the world on a postcard”, and submit them on the contest page. I’m sure postcrossers know better than anyone the feeling of traveling to another place through a postcard… so it should be an easy task to represent this idea trough an image, right? 😇

And let’s talk prizes! Although only one postcard will be the official postcard of this year’s World Postcard Day, the best three designs will all receive prizes:

Each winner will be awarded a bluetooth Wacom drawing tablet, plus some neat Pantone products as well! These Pantone goodies were kindly sponsored by Tecnimprensa (the company that represents Pantone in Portugal), and I’m sure they’ll come in handy.

You have until the end of July 15^th (UTC) to submit your proposals digitally, and the winners will be announced in mid-August, which should then give everyone plenty of time to download and print the official postcard locally, like last year.

Even if you’re not very artistically inclined, make sure to spread the word about the contest to any talented friends. We are super curious about this year’s designs, and can’t wait to see which postcard will be the official World Postcard Day postcard of 2021! 🎉