Postcrossing Blog

We’re writing this post to address an important matter concerning the recently concluded World Postcard Day 2023 design contest.

Despite our best efforts, we failed to detect that the winning design of this year’s World Postcard Day contest was based on a stock image, and thus did not follow the rules of the contest (which call for the submission of original artworks, made by the person). Upon becoming aware of this issue, we immediately recalled the design.

Both Paulo and I deeply regret this oversight. We understand and share the anticipation and excitement with which our community, contestants, and global enthusiasts await this special day, and thus recognize the magnitude of this lapse. As the organizers, we truly apologize for not living up to the standards we set for this event.

In light of this, the design that garnered the second highest number of votes will be rightfully declared the contest winner. We are working to finalize and release this new design, which we hope will happen in the next few days. We aim to ensure that every aspect of it aligns with the contest’s rules, especially given the circumstances. To those who have already printed the previous design, we’re really sorry about this.

Going forward, we will reconsider the format of the design contest and what extra measures can be taken to make sure a situation like this does not happen again. We will also take into account the increasing use of AI tools in image creation, a challenge that makes it increasingly harder to determine originality and authorship.

Given the nature of this post, we’ve closed the comments. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to hear from you: for any concerns or feedback, please reach out to us directly.

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!

Friends… it was a grand party, wasn’t it? 🎉 On World Postcard Day last week, postcards were written, friends were met, and a bit all around the world, the joy of knowing we’re sharing a happy day with so many people like us was just contagious. So much buzzing energy, both online and offline… it was the best World Postcard Day yet! There’s too much to cover, so here’s a quick highlight of a few things that took place on that magical day.

First off, schools! Marjorie (aka Marjie) from Rainbows Penpal Club was busy connecting together 552 children in 17 schools and 9 different countries so that they could all exchange postcards! On the day itself, she even had time to run events on a few different libraries — how cool is that? Other schools in the UK also joined in the day, and we are so, so proud of all these teachers and educators who are raising a new generation of postcard writers!

Mailart workshops and exhibitions took place in different countries as well (like the ones in Bangalore, or in Tampere), and there were special postmarks in Portugal and Malta, at least. Besides making a handstamp available for the day, Malta Postal Museum also created a unique postcard to celebrate the World Postcard Day — as did the Faroe Post!

We cannot possibly write about all the Postcrossing meetups that took place on the day… but it warms our heart to know people got together, from Indonesia to Spain, China to the USA, India, UK or Portugal… Have a peek at the events list — there were over 100 of them!

Allow us to highlight just a couple. For instance, postcrossers and Correos de Mexico organized a postcard-making workshop to celebrate the day. It took place at the beautiful Palacio Postal (which the Little Mail Carriers visited before) and had lots of participants!

In Tallinn, a big meetup took place to celebrate both the World Postcard Day and the new Postcrossing stamp that Estonia launched on that day! A lot of the participants travelled to this meeting from Finland by boat with the Finnish Postcrossing Friends Association, who organized the meetup and took the photo on the left. Illustrators, designers and publishers were also invited to participate.

Some postcrossers cooked ravioli (remember that they are shaped like postage stamps?) on the day, and Adrienne (aka adriennefriend) and her partner made this delicious looking vegan ravioli from scratch. The filling is made of tofu-cashew cheese and fresh herbs, and even the sauce was homemade! We didn’t have much time on our hands that day, so we stuck with stamp-shaped cookies, which were also delicious.

The day happened to land on a Saturday, which made it perfect for #postboxsaturday — and so many of you joined in and posted photos of postcards alongside your country’s postboxes on social media! 😍 We loved seeing them, in all their diverse and colorful glory!

Some postcrossers have already started seeing the updated badges on your profile pages, as the postcards sent on the day start to arrive to their destinations. Over 90,000 of them were sent in the timespan that counts as World Postcard Day (in all timezones), which is massive… about 7 times more than an average day in Postcrossing. We’re relieved that the website was more or less stable throughout the whole day, as it really was not made for this kind of peaks. But everything was fine in the end! 😊 We hope these are just a few of the postcards sent on that day though, and that many more have been sent out to your friends, family, and others out there. The world’s mailboxes should be very happy indeed.

Thank you everyone, for making this such a wonderful day. It’s definitely been the highlight of the year for us, and we hope you had a nice day as well!

By the way, today is World Post Day — the day postal services are celebrated around the world, and also the anniversary of the Universal Postal Union. On the occasion, the secretary general of the United Nations, Mr. António Guterres, said:

“The theme of this year’s World Post Day – “Post for Planet” – recognizes the many ways in which postal services are finding cleaner, greener means to reach our doorsteps day in, day out. “Post for Planet” is also a call to action for the postal sector to use its position as a connector between governments, businesses, and people to take a leading role in our fight against climate change.”

And none will hear the postman’s knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

Night Mail, W.H. Auden

The day is here at last — it’s World Postcard Day! 🎉 This is the day in which we celebrate the humble postcard, a means of communication so simple, and yet carrying so much joy and thoughtfulness within it. Today marks the postcard’s 153th anniversary, and amidst this era’s instant messaging and email, they continue to be a treasured way to keep in touch and show someone we care for them.

Around the world, thousands of us are going to be busy writing to the people we treasure or miss, to those who need some joy or appreciation, to children and the elderly and to other fans of postcards! Some are joining one of the events taking place in museums and libraries, others are meeting in person to write some postcards together, visiting stamp shows or go fetch a special cancellation mark. It is a day to remember! And at the end of the day, there will be thousands of postcards dropped in postboxes all around the world. It makes us happy to think of all those well-fed postboxes, brimming with postcards and just waiting for the next visit of a mail carrier. What a surprise they will have the next time they empty the postbox!

If you’re in Estonia today, you’ll also be celebrating the launch of your own Postcrossing-themed stamp, so your World Postcard Day cards will feature this special stamp and be just extra cool. Enjoy!

If this is your first celebration of the day, we suggest taking some time to learn more about the history of postcards, from the popularization of the printing press, to the modern offset printing methods… and all the way to Postcrossing. 😊

If you need a break from writing so many postcards, do come share with us how you’re getting along on your World Postcard Day celebrations on this forum topic, on the comments below, or on social media using the hashtag #worldpostcardday. We’ll be reposting and highlighting some photos and testimonials throughout the day, and we hope they spread the word about the day, and inspire others to write a few postcards as well!

Happy World Postcard Day, everyone! Wherever you are, however you wish to celebrate, we hope you have a great one!

PS: Don’t forget the ravioli! Or maybe some Leibniz cookies, which someone pointed out are also shaped like postage stamps! 😋