A good thank you shows appreciation for someone. Store bought thank you cards are one method, but they lack a personal touch. This is why I have now adopted a post-card thank you.
Post Card Thank You – Avery 8387
My preference is to use a post card format that Avery sells. It is a stiff cardboard sheet of four-cards, product number Avery 8387 or 8386. A pack of 100 cards is $30 bucks.
On the front is a picture and the back is where I write my thank you note. While you could use other card stock (e.g. half fold), I like the post card format because it encourages a succinct message and a speedy thank you. The following image shows the front of one sheet of four cards:
The standard message on the back reads: “This card is unique and so are you. The image on the other side is from Phrank’s Photos and is only used once. It is our way of saying thank you for being you and your efforts.“
One Picture – One Card
As the above message suggests, I only use the image once; each card is unique to the individual receiving it. The images themselves are from my photo library.
Because I use my own photos, each card comes with a personal story. It might be from a youth exchange to Morocco (the above 4 photos from 1983), a hike 20 years ago, a climbing expedition, a cruise, etc. When I say thank you with a card, I am sharing a small part of my past with the person receiving the card.
The Image Rules
Because sharing is an act of intimacy, I use the following rules:
- Own the image and the content. No stock images and see below when it comes to people.
- No people or else faces are distant or obscured. This saves me the bother of model releases and protects privacy. On this note, DEFINITELY no clear images of child’s face.
- Appropriate for all ages. Okay, this one goes without saying, but keep it clean folks. Full disclosure, my image library meets this requirement – I have no pictures of cats crossed-dressed as dogs, for example.
- Something Worth Looking At. Hopefully this card will end up stuck on a cubicle wall for a few years so be selective with your images. Nothing blurry, good composition, nice colours, etc.
- Mix up your Content. Part of the fun of using this method is to mix and match the images to the person. A lake landscape to someone who likes fishing, a street image for someone who likes to travel.
Having Fun With 1 Trillion Images
I have less than about 30,000 images in my library taken over the years of which perhaps 1-2% might meet the above rules. This may seem like a lot but 30,000 photos is probably the number of images taken in Canada in the time it took to read this paragraph [1].
The smart phone has democratized photography. In 2017, it was estimated that 1.2 TRILLION photos [2] were taken. This is a three-fold increase over 2011 – and this number is climbing. The reality is that smart phone cameras and software are taking ever better photos which leads to the question: ‘when do you go back and look at all of those pictures?‘.
Thank You and Your Family
Where do you store and what do you do with your ever-accumulating number of digital images? Even worse, we never remember the past because we are too busy recording the current moment. Creating a post card with your image has another benefit; it can help you relive past moments by having a pretty darn good reason to look through your treasure trove of pictures.
Rather than doing it in isolation, how about a family-night and ask your spouse/kids/friends to flip through the images and identify ones that are thank you card worthy. A bowl of popcorn, laughing and crying at images from the past is the start of an excellent thank you card and a way to reinforce memories with your family.
Templates and Getting Started
The links below will take you the Avery Word template. Personally, I prefer Microsoft Publisher only because it gives me better layout control. Feel free to download, replace (or use) the images.
[1] Here is my math:
| Photos Taken | 1,200,000,000,000 | for 2017 | A. |
| Global Smart Phones | 3,300,000,000 | for 2019 | B. |
| Canada | 26,600,000 | for 2019 | C. |
| Canada % – phones | 0.00806061 | for 2019 | D=C/B |
| Canada % – pictures | 9,672,727,273 | per annum | E=D x A |
| 26,500,622.67 | per diem | F=E/365 days | |
| 1,104,193 | per hour | G=F/24 hours | |
| 18,403.21 | per minute | H=G/60 min | |
| 307 | per second | I=H/60 Sec |
[2]. Vox: How Apple’s iPhone changed the world: 10 years in 10 charts.
Organizational Biology 