TL;DR I just realized my comments about this are already a thing that was already submitted on the same day this was...
Hey Karolis,
I'll start off by saying I like the idea. I can't test it, but I think I understand the idea.
With that said, some might not see the value, because, in my opinion, only sending a few words might not entice people enough to use it, or at least more than once.
For my personal use case, what I would want to do is write a full post card, (or letter), maybe even pick an image to put as the postcard background, and then send it.
Maybe I'm on vacation in Europe, and I want to send a postcard home. I don't want to spend the time to buy one, or find a post office, because I'm in a different country.
However, I DO have access to the internet, and your app. I could write a postcard, select a picture I took, and send it to someone at home.
Also, does it cost anything? What does it cost? I don't see that anywhere, and I don't have an iPhone.
I want to see the process from start to finish. Show me on the site what is going to happen when I download or app, or when I use it.
Basically, take any questions or apprehensions someone might have, and answer them on your site, in your screenshots, or in text.
Don't give me stupid reason not to use it like my not knowing how it truly works or how much it costs.
That's my 2 cents, maybe it's not what you intended with the product, but I'd pay for it if it were!
@hellosmoore, thanks for your feedback, there is definitely lots to work on to improve the clarity of the concept and the process.
I imagine there's plenty of people who would find your use case super relevant. It makes a lot of sense to empower the user to customize the product that he's ultimately paying for. Our approach is a bit different though. We are focussing on making the design process happen on its own, defined by the data (language of your message in this case) instead of asking to take arbitrary / subjective design decisions. We want to reduce the amount of effort one needs to take to make something beautiful.
Hi,
I am Karolis, a co-founder and designer of Anchovy.
It is an extremely simple iPhone app that turns words into color gradients and allows to send them as a postcard without going to the post, without buying a stamp or an envelope, without doing anything actually.
Just enter the address and we’ll get it there in a couple of weeks.
@bentossell Thanks!
We've been exploring the idea of combining the language and color in a design tool that anyone could use. We built a web prototype https://fromanchovy.com with the assumption that users would love to compliment their social media messages (tweets and fb posts) with a generated image. We found out, however, that instead of broadcasting people were emailing the jpgs with personal messages to their friends.
As a result, we built a hybrid online-offline communication tool and a postcard emerged as an object that was easy to create on your phone and relatively straightforward and affordable to produce on-demand. In addition, there is an element of nostalgia — it is an object that most people can relate to.
Anchovy
Anchovy
Makerpad
Anchovy