Postcrossing Blog

Hurray! The Belarusian Postcrossing stamp was officially launched and is now out and about! While we haven’t set our eyes on a real specimen yet, postcrossers of all ages met at Minsk’s post office yesterday to use the first stamps and maxicards. Victor sent us some photos of the event:

Brilliant! Victor tells us hundreds of cards were signed and sent, and lots of mailboxes all around the world will be happy soon! :)

Happy Postcrossing!

PS – If you’re curious, you can see many more photos here.

Over the years, we’ve sometimes felt the need for a set of guidelines that clearly explained what Postcrossing is about. Something that would help set up the expectations for the new members of the project, as well as define some basic ground rules: a sort of dos and don’ts of Postcrossing.

So a few months ago we’ve sharpened our pencils and started collecting all of Postcrossing’s guiding principles in one place, carefully discussing each item. We’ve asked for input from some longtime members of the community and incorporated their feedback. And today, we’re happy to publish them. You can read them on the new Postcrossing Community Guidelines page.

Postcrossing’s guidelines are not new, and include basic things like “Always send a postcard to the addresses you request” or “Register postcards on arrival”. Most of them were implicit and already written on different pages of the website… but because they were spread out, it was hard for members to find them and be aware of them.

We believe that these guidelines will help bring the community closer together, and make the Postcrossing experience a more enjoyable one.

Have fun and happy Postcrossing!

Thirteen months ago, we published a ranking of how popular Postcrossing was in a given country, based on the number of postcrossers for every 100,000 inhabitants.

It’s been a while since then, so we thought it was time to compile some fresh statistics, and check if there were any noticeable differences. Here is the updated ranking:

What do you know? Finland is still leading the ranking by a mile! :) New-comers to the table include the Åland Islands, Guam, South Korea and Israel. Please note that in the case of the Åland Islands, the ranking is skewed, as their population is about 26,000 inhabitants.

On the fast-climbers side, Hong Kong jumped 10 places (from 19th to 9th) but the most surprising climb comes from Ukraine, which rose from 35th place to 16th! Well done!

Are there other statistics you would be curious to see here? Let us know!

PS: Like the last time, to calculate the data above we took into account only countries with more than 10 members and excluded countries which were too small or of which we did not have any relevant population data.

Although quite small, the space on the back of a postcard can often seem intimidating, and some postcrossers struggle with what to write there… To help with this, here are 20 different ideas to fill your postcards! :)

1. Express what daily life is like where you’re sending the card from by describing what you did today, your routine, etc.
2. Write 5 curious facts about the place where the card is from.
3. Give local travelling tips from your area! What are the must-sees around you?
4. Include your favourite quote, perhaps in its original language (with translation!)
5. What was the last thing you cooked or ate? Include a recipe!
6. What do you have in common with the recipient of your card?
7. Recount a childhood memory, or something you’ve learned from your grandparents.
8. What makes you happy? If it makes you smile, there’s a good chance others will like to hear about it.
9. Share a local idiom or saying, in its original language, with translation of course!
10. Did you ever travel to the place where your card is going? Recall your best memory of that place.
11. What’s the weather like as you are writing your postcard? Draw the weather forecast in detail!

12. Share an interesting fact that you’ve learned, and which most people are not aware of.
13. Got an unusual hobby or collection? Do tell!
14. Did anything important happen in your country lately? Share an interesting news bit!
15. Tell the recipient about your favourite book, movie or band!
16. Draw a picture of your surroundings, or your favourite object in that room!
17. Write your favorite poem or…
18. …make up your own poem – acrostic poems or haikus are short and enjoyable to write!
19. What are the local festivals or traditions from your area?
20. If you’re a student, what are you studying? What was the last thing you learned in school?

We hope that helps inspire some of you! Got some other tips? Please share them below!

Photo by Dancing Lemur, on Flickr.

Back in 2005, when Postcrossing was about to be launched, a logo wasn’t on top of our priorities… To tell the truth, we just wanted to get it done so that we could open the website, invite our friends to join, and get some postcards going! :) So we quickly drafted something on an image editor with our meager design skills, and moved on to more important things: actually sending some postcards and testing the website.

Of course, this was a time at which we couldn’t imagine the project would ever grow so big… so when people outside of our circle of friends started joining, and the media picked up on it, they caught us unprepared… As time passed, our priorities quickly shifted to solving problems and keeping the website running.

But over the years, we felt the need for something a bit more professional, something that would implicitly show the essence of the project… and something that we could brag about too! And so last year, we enlisted the help of our friend and designer Maria Nogueira, with the mission to create a fresh new logo for Postcrossing. She tinkered with many ideas for some months, being ever patient with our hesitation and obsessive adjustments… And now, we’re pleased to share with you the result from this collaboration:

We love the new logo, and feel that it really says something about the project! We hope you like it too. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Update: Hi guys! Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment and letting us know what you think – we do appreciate all the feedback, and it’s nice to see that you care and feel passionate about the project. We are listening and taking notes.
We think it’s too soon to judge whether or not the logo is good. Let’s give it some time, and a fair chance to sink in, to see how it works.