KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 20 — In our modern world dominated by social media networks and emails, staying in touch with your friends or even family via snail mail is almost unheard of.
Yet, Will Sii and Kay Ho in collaboration with various artists have designed a set of more than 600 postcards that encourages you to pick up a pen and write to someone.
Postcare, their one-of a-kind postcard station at The Cubez Pop Up Concept Store located in Sungai Wang Plaza, wants you to communicate with others the old fashioned way without any digital devices — just pen, paper and a stamp.
Started at the end of August, it is believed to the first postcard station in Malaysia where you can buy a postcard, write out your message and they will help you mail it.
With a tagline like “We Post, We Care”, they hope to encourage others to write and express their care towards their beloved ones. “Sending a postcard is the next best thing to showing up personally at someone’s door... where the ink from your pen touches the stationery and your fingers can touch the cards,” said Will.
During the previous World Post Day that occurred on October 9, the station also held many events that were attended by more than 100 people to promote using postal services.
If you look at the postcard designs, you will see there are a lot of themes to appeal to you. “The postcards are for everyone,” explained Will. These themes include food and beverage, sports, motivational quotes, and even our Malaysian culture.
Our favourite nasi lemak bungkus gets reinterpreted as a warrior complete with a fried egg doubling up as a shield, as it holds up a crispy ikan bilis, declaring that, “I’ll serve the best.”
Even the iconic Kuala Lumpur City Centre’s twin towers are depicted as friends that are hugging each other. You also have tributes towards our favourite childhood snacks like Tora, Popo fish muruku, Ding Dang and etc.
The people behind the postcards also use different media to express themselves — digital art, hand drawn, calligraphy, ink drawings and photography. The sky is the limit for their creativity.
According to Will, the artists who have signed up are committed to the project as it’s more like a movement rather than a way to earn income. Most of the talented artists are from The One Academy where Will and Kay also studied for an advertising and graphic diploma. This includes people like AS, ManComic, SillyJellie, TamagoPanda, OlafYen, SalaryZai, AhBoy, Breand and Siblings. Will also contributes under WillSii, so does Kay under the name OhKay.
So far, the “We Post, We Care” campaign has people responding positively. This also includes locals who often drop by the station to pick up a postcard to send to friends. Visitors to Malaysia have also been enthusiastic about the idea.
As Sungai Wang Plaza is a tourist magnet, some from as far as Germany or India have popped by to write a message to send to their loved ones back home. According to Will, some people even take up to one hour to slowly go through the designs to choose their special postcards.
Some travellers often practise sending postcards to themselves to document their personal reminders of the journey they took but how about your future self? At Postcare, they offer a unique service where you can send a postcard to your future self, whether it’s five or even 10 years later.
Will reassures that even if there’s a postage cost increase, they will honour their promise to send out those postcards in the future. There is something incredibly magical about writing to your future self — a way to keep those special memories alive at that moment or a reminder to yourself on a personal achievement.
Postcare also recommends that people envision their future life and send some words of encouragement whether you want to accept and forgive your past self. Most importantly, it’s a nice wake-up call for everyone.
Each purchase of the postcard with postage will ensure that your cards are sent off. Sit at a corner of Postcare to write your heartfelt message using their selection of pens or even stamps. Once you are done, drop it off at the big heart shaped postbox at Postcare... like sending out your love.
The postcard idea is a brainwave of Will’s that took about one year in the planning. He often will carve some time at least once or twice a month to write postcards to his friends. About five years ago, a friend had purchased one of his hand drawn notebooks and Will had included a thank you note in a form of an illustrated postcard that said, “Never Ever Give Up.” He was extremely touched when that same friend told him that postcard encouraged him to continue working as he was about to give up his job.
Even though he was born in Sri Aman, Sarawak, Will grew up in Brunei where his parents were working. In his early years, he was interested in drawing and even made his own jigsaw puzzles. When he was in primary school, he picked up a prize in a drawing competition. It was just five years ago that he relocated to KL when he took up a course at The One Academy. After he graduated, he joined advertising.
He started his own creative agency, i’ll studio in 2011, that dabbles in anything from branding, packaging to their own stationery range. One of their successful projects is their creative angpow packets they did for a client — mask cum angpow packet for the Year of the Monkey.
As Will personally loves alphabets, he draws these beautiful lettering under his “Artword” series where he illustrates on each letter to express its meaning. For instance, M can stand for Mission Impossible, miracle or even magic! This has also been incorporated into their range of Alphabet notebooks. The prolific illustrator is also an ambassador for Shark Savers Malaysia that leads an anti-shark’s fin movement.
Recently he took part in the Inktober drawing challenge where one must do an ink drawing every day of the month of October. It’s a challenge that was started by American illustrator Jake Parker back in 2009 to challenge himself to improve his own inking skills and develop positive drawing habits.
The event has grown into a worldwide one that sees thousands of artists signing up for the daily challenge to keep creating. Will’s illustrations included a tribute to what Malaysians love the most... food. Hence he cleverly depicted iconic figures from our Malaysian food landscape like the nasi lemak man and the teh tarik fellow in the mamak stall.
Also available at Postcare is I Love Negaraku, designed by Will Sii in colloboration with Postcare. The book that was launched during World Post Day has 16 postcards that you can colour on your own. All the illustrations are made using Will’s signature “Artword” style to celebrate the multi cultural heritage of Malaysia.
Postcare by i’ll studio
Lot S067 & S068, Second Floor, Sungai Wang Plaza, KL
For more details, follow them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/wepostwecare/
