New feature suggestion - SLOWLY Postcards ?

New feature suggestion – SLOWLY Postcards ?

November 9, 2021

Wouldn't it be great if we could create Postcards

...at some point — to send to our pen pal friends?

The postcards would allow for brief messages, without annoying the recipient (who might be expecting a long letter, possibly). This would be faster than composing a full letter, and done in short order when inspiration came. While travelling, for example?

It would also allow us to send a great image, relevant for the moment. Special occasions, Birthdays, Holiday greetings, I can see this feature serving in many instances, and being enjoyed by many. So here are the details...

(originally posted on our subReddit here, on July 26, 2020 – and now out for the wider world to consider)

A new idea, explained

I had this idea yesterday — and made a comment about it in one of the Topics on our subReddit here. Problem is, I can't find it, so here it goes. For discussion, comments and possibly being passed on to the Slowly Team for consideration.

New feature — Slowly allowing a user-created Postcard.
Two sided as a typical postcard. Side one being a full size photo or image selected by the user.
Side two would have the typical postcard layout as well : A stamp (to be user selected).
An address area, which could be narrower than shown in the sample above; and would be pre-filled with the destination pen pal's username, city and country.
And a message area -– which is limited in size and so can accept only a certain amount of text. A good and valid reason to send someone something short of a full letter size! :)
Would be a pretty neat way to quickly share some cool stamps with friends as well.

I think this could be an interesting added feature. I would take some work from the programming team, but could be implemented without rushing them, if there's interest.

Longer term, maybe we could even create a depository of images, where anyone interested could place local postcard images (non-copyrighted, their own photos for example) and these could be seen and reused by anyone interested.

Great image sources abound

We could even use Vintage postcard designs which might now be in the Public Domain, their copyright having expired. The Boston Public Library hosts a nice collection there. As does the Museums Victoria, from Australia.

Or look at the beautiful photos available on sites like Unsplash.com, which are free for use in most cases.

Archive.org also has lots of interesting images on file. For example, see their Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection here (now hosting 141,061 images).

A sample gallery, collected from Unsplash:

Vintage postcard, Boston Public Library

Vintage photo, Museums Victoria

Photo by Tetiana SHYSHKINA

Photo by Les Anderson

Photo by Dariusz Sankowski

A Site that creates and mails custom postcards

A quick search and some checking, and I found a nice site – MyPostcards.com.

They go a bit beyond what we need, allowing their users to create their own designs, with any image they wish, a custom greeting and message.

And when complete, they will print a hard copy and dispatch it to the recipient, via postal services. All for a cost that is not far from the basic international postal rate here in Canada, for example.

The site's post card creation tools are neat, and inspiring if Slowly decided to consider this idea. I created a mock card to be sent, and took a few snapshots for posting here.

MyPostcard creation steps

Select a basic style from their gallery.
Select the desired image for use; either a local file, or via an URL to online image.

Selecting the desired Image for your card

You have option of Frames to use around the image if desired.

Selecting a custom Frame for the image

Now on to entering the Message to our friend, and their address.

Writing the desired message and recipient's address

You can select one of their Fonts, colours and text size, make sure all of the text fits!

Font style selection tools

And then you have a Preview step, where you can see the finished design before ordering and paying for it.

Preview of the finished card after you selected the image and text

A completed design

This was simple and satisfying, their user interface is simple and logical, functional. You can change font and colours while composing, and see what suits you best.

Front, showing the NeoWise Comet in the skies over Jasper, Alberta, Canada

Back, the user customized text and recipient's address

For SLOWLY users, I imagine the addressing step could be simplified.

We would select the User's name; and their location (City, Country) would be picked up from their profile.

Ideally we could also select one of the very pretty SLOWLY custom stamps like we do for regular letters.

Famous Last Words

Various example vintage photos and illustrations from Unsplash.com, with sincere thanks.

Special thank you to all the folks behind the SLOWLY app.

Letters we share, with pen pals all over the world. A modern day take in the traditional penpal experience. Come and join us, using SLOWLY.

Follow Blog via your Fediverse/Mastodon account :

This page created in MarkDown language. Thank you for reading, feel free to comment, via a direct message to my Twitter account – or the Reddit one.

You can also post a public comment in the Reddit thread for it here.

yann2@bsky.social Top ▲