Postcrossing Blog

Today we’re really excited to tell you about Typographic Postcards, a fantastic Kickstarter project by Frankfurt-based typographer Harald Geisler!

Inspired by the design of his now famous wall calendar (which he has been producing since 2009), Harold decided to apply the same concept to postcards. On his website, he explains:

The first THANK YOU Card I printed in 2012. I wanted a simple card to give to friends. (…) The card was received well so I designed a HAPPY NEW YEAR’s card. As a friend of mine went to hospital I felt the need for an original GET WELL card. With the next birthday coming up, I thought how great it would be to have a typographic birthday card, which eventually became this simple CAKE on pink background card.

He did more and more of them as the need arose, until he ended up with a set of 15 postcards:

The themes are an interesting mix of all-purpose words and expressions, some straightforward and other more intriguing. He bundled them all together on a Kickstarter project, in order to gather funding for printing the set.

Being IT geeks ourselves, the minimalist vintage-yet-techie feel of these postcards appealed to us immediately! But Harold decided to sweeten up the deal even further, by adding one new postcard to the set every time the total of pledges crosses a multiple of €300. Yup, you read that right! :)

It goes like this: if the project reaches just €300, everyone gets fifteen postcards plus one extra. If it reaches €600, pledgers get an extra two cards (total 17), three extra postcards when it reaches €900, and so on. Right now, the total amount is just over €1000, so all backers are already counting on 15+3 postcards… and the more people join, the more postcards everyone receives. Win-win!

So if you decide to back Typographic Postcards, do spread the word! We’re hoping many people will choose to join us, so that everyone can receive as many of postcards as possible! :)

While browsing Flickr for inspiration, we found this charming set of Easter cards, uploaded by the National Library of Norway. They’re all really sweet, so we thought we’d share some of them with you!

Eggs, chicks, bunnies and children! Glædelig Paaske — Happy Easter! :)

Museums are great, but if you’re anything like us, halfway through an exhibition you’re already wondering what goodies they’ll have on the museum shop… right? :)

How many times have you been in a foreign city, walking around and being a tourist, secretly wishing you could just skip the monuments and go straight to the stationery shops instead… but had no idea where the good ones were?

Well, fret no more! Tessa Sowry from All Things Stationery is solving this problem by compiling a map of the best stationery shops around the world… and she wants your input too!

Head over to her site to get your stationery fix – and if you know of any really good stationery shops in your area, let her know. I’m sure we’ll all appreciate it when we visit that place!

And now, it’s time to plan the next stationery shop crawl… have a nice weekend! :)

Remember last year, when we wrote about Keri Smith’s new postcard book?

The promotional video Keri did highlighted one postcard in particular: a postcard that was made to be sent back and forth between friends! It sounded like a great idea, and I was itching to give it a try… And just then, PostMuse tweeted this serendipitous message:

I suggested we give it a go, to see if it worked, and she accepted. YAY! I promptly mailed her my card:

Over the course of several months, we sent the same postcard between Berlin and Pittsburgh. With time, it became a sort of tiny journal, telling its story not only on the messages we wrote, but also in its stamps, postal markings, nicks and scratches. It even visited Ex Postal Facto and Postcrossing’s stamp launch in Guernsey!

And now, almost a year later, we’ve finally ran out of space. Here’s how it looks:

So, yes, it worked, and it turned out to be a pretty cool postal experiment too — one I can definitely recommend! :)

A looong time ago, we shared some tips about postcard sets that were available online. They’re cheap, great quality and quite handy when you need a bit of variety… or for when your local bookshop has run out of nice postcards! :)

Lately, we’ve seen a lot of new and exciting editions on the market, which means it’s time for a fresh roundup! The choice is rather overwhelming, so to narrow it down, we decided to focus on reasonably priced boxes of 100 postcards. Here are some of our current favorites that we thought you might like:

• House Industries 100 Postcards
• The Art of Pixar, Volume II: 100 Collectible Postcards
• The Impossible Project Spectrum Collection: 100 Instant-Film Postcards
• Live the Life You Love Postcard Box: 100 Hand-Lettered Postcards

• Sibley Backyard Birding Postcards: 100 Postcards
• Postcards From Puffin: 100 Book Covers in One Box
• Postcards from The New Yorker: One Hundred Covers from Ten Decades
• Paris versus New York Postcard Box: A Tally of Two Cities in 100 Postcards

• From the Desk of Jane Austen: 100 Postcards
• Doctor Who Postcards from Time and Space (our absolute favorite!)
• One Hundred Writers in One Box: Postcards from Penguin Modern Classics
• The Art of Classic Comics: 100 Postcards fom the Fabulous 1950s

Typography goodness, photos, magazine covers, illustration, children and grown-up themes… there’s something for everyone, and they’re a steal! :)

Got any favorites of your own? Do share your tips in the comments!