I’d been debating with myself whether to do a postcard for my rapidly upcoming solo show opening on April 7th at the Rancho Linda Vista Gallery here in Oracle. Where once designing, printing and mailing postcards was a given, now it seems to be optional. Some artists just send virtual email postcards to the people on their mailing list. It’s certainly a lot less expensive. And it does the job–letting people know and inviting them to come to the show. On the other hand, I for one enjoy getting real mail in my real mailbox once in awhile. And exhibition cards are especially nice–great refrigerator decorations for one thing and less likely to get lost as so many email messages do (at least mine do).
The printing of postcards used to be the major expense. And since the more you print the less expensive the per card cost is, back in the day, people would print large numbers and send them out everywhere they could think of. My friends Patricia and Jacob Sahertian recommended gotprint.com awhile back and I’ve used this online printing company several times and been happy with the results. It’s remarkably easy to design postcards online, order them and get them printed within a couple days. The shipping takes a bit longer depending on how much you want to pay.
The largest expense is on the mailing end–the postage. When I first thought about postcards, I figured I’d order 500 and send them out to the hefty 300+ Rancho Linda Vista Gallery list, plus my own list. Then I calculated the mailing costs! So I decided to do a combination of email “postcards” to the gallery list and physical postcards with real stamps to my mailing list. And so I ordered 250 cards.
I answered my own question. A combination of email and printed cards, a nice compromise. The printed postcards should arrive in a week or so. Enough time for me to address them, stamp them and get them mailed out. Let me know if you’d like one, send me your address and I’d be happy to send it off to you!