Monarch: Greetings Without the Guesswork

Extra Postage Required. How often have you purchased a greeting card and seen those words on the envelope? Do you wonder how much additional postage (or do you just stick two First-Class stamps on the envelope and hope your card arrives)? Well, the Postal Service and the greeting-card industry have a plan to reduce this guesswork.

In many cases, the words extra postage required, are used for First-Class mail that falls into the “nonmachinable” category^[1] — mail that must be sorted by hand because it’s too rigid or too thin, or because its shape is square or doesn’t meet prescribed aspect ratio.

Americans purchase 7 billion greeting cards each year^[2], and this demand, combined with technological advances, has spawned a wealth of innovative card designs. Many include sound, light, movement, or texture — undeniably exciting, but sometimes nonmachinable as a result.

The current surcharge for hand sorting is 20¢ — this is the “extra postage required.” And since 2008, there has been a stamp available with a denomination set precisely to cover the total postage for 1 oz. nonmachinable First-Class mail: the First-Class rate plus the 20¢ surcharge.

The 62¢ Dragonfly (2008) was the first such stamp issued. And with the rate change of 2009 came a new release in the same classification: the 64¢ Dolphin.

But to make applying the correct postage even simpler, the Greeting Card Association (GCA) suggested a collaboration with the Postal Service.

The GCA proposed printing an iconic circle on envelopes for all nonmachinable cards, one that would correspond to a unique circular stamp. The image on the stamp could change with the rate, but the format would always be round. The circle on the envelope would alert consumers to use the current circular stamp for postage — no more guessing.

But round stamps generate too much paper waste, and the circular shape made finding appropriate images difficult. As did the triangles, octagons, parallelograms, and other unique stamp formats considered by the Postal Service design team. Art director Derry Noyes explains why she finally gravitated toward a square stamp format.

“Although we’ve produced square stamps before, they’re still a bit unusual,” she says, “and there’s something really beautiful about a square stamp on a square (or oblong) envelope.”

And other questions remained: What type of imagery would permit the development of a multi-design stamp series and also be appropriate for greeting cards ranging from humorous to sentimental? And what distinctive shape could be used as a graphic icon on envelopes, now that circles had been abandoned?

As the design team explored birds, animals, seashells, and botanical illustrations, Noyes remembered a series of butterfly illustrations created by Delaware artist Tom Engeman.

“I had always thought they would make spectacularly beautiful stamps,” she says. “They had a wonderful, graphic quality — great color and a strong silhouette on a clean, white background. And the symmetry of the images just cried out for a square stamp.”

The design team agreed, as did the Greeting Card Association, and a butterfly collection was born. Beginning this year, the GCA will encourage card manufacturers to print the iconic symbol of a stamp outline containing a butterfly silhouette on its nonmachinable envelopes; and the Postal Service will issue a corresponding butterfly stamp with each rate change. Monarch is the first in a series of these winged beauties slotted for production.

We live in a digital age, filled with e-mail, e-commerce and, of course, e-cards. Yet who among us doesn’t feel anticipation when we see a card in our mail? Or cherish the message inside?

Now that the guesswork is gone, go buy that perfect card, write a personal note and make someone feel special. Monarch will cover any extra postage required.