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| sent from: London, UK. destination: London, UK |
It takes a while to compile the stats for the year, in part because until I am certain a card is not likely to arrive I don’t want to declare it lost or forgotten.
So here are the stats for Postcardwala Year 1 (Aug 2011 – Aug 2012):
366 sent
346 arrived (94.54%)
15 lost (4.10%)
3 unknown (0.82%)
2 not sent (0.55%)
This is one of those posts that I’ve thought about for at least six months, but as Year 3 started it seemed like it was now or never. I was disappointed by how many cards went missing, especially from the once-glorified UK Royal Mail. There was a cluster of cards that never arrived around the postal strike of Christmas 2011, suggesting that the mail backlog was dumped.
What’s the difference between a card not arriving and its whereabouts being unknown? In one case I’m in touch with the people the card is going to and after a couple of months of the card not arriving, I presume it is missing. Unknown is a designation I reserve for those that I’ve sent to people with whom I am not in personal contact with, and that I have no real way of knowing whether the card has arrived or not (unless they reach out to me somehow to let me know).
On another note about the drawing itself, I was trying to make the poses of the cards readable, and adding little feet and arms helped with that. I fretted over adding the stamp and ‘writing’ to the cards because in one case (where it’s knocking on the door) it’s facing away from the viewer, and in the others it’s facing towards the viewer. So is the stamp on the front? The back? I worry it might confuse the viewer, but in the end making it clear that these little rectangles were postcards in the simplest possible way won out.
What’s the difference between a card not arriving and its whereabouts being unknown? In one case I’m in touch with the people the card is going to and after a couple of months of the card not arriving, I presume it is missing. Unknown is a designation I reserve for those that I’ve sent to people with whom I am not in personal contact with, and that I have no real way of knowing whether the card has arrived or not (unless they reach out to me somehow to let me know).
On another note about the drawing itself, I was trying to make the poses of the cards readable, and adding little feet and arms helped with that. I fretted over adding the stamp and ‘writing’ to the cards because in one case (where it’s knocking on the door) it’s facing away from the viewer, and in the others it’s facing towards the viewer. So is the stamp on the front? The back? I worry it might confuse the viewer, but in the end making it clear that these little rectangles were postcards in the simplest possible way won out.