Office Toy: Custom Rubber Stamps
Analog offices cry out for rubber stamps, mostly because it is fun to use them.
But they also earn their keep. We’ve already covered the uses of some off-the-shelf stamps like date and security stamps.
Custom rubber stamps do for repetitive handwriting what typing short-cut apps like TextExpander do for repetitive keyboarding.
If you routinely write in paper notebooks, routinely read paper books, and routinely send paper mail and packages, you need these two custom stamps:
For paper postal mail and for sending packages, get a self-inking stamp with your name and mailing address on it.
For books, notebooks, index cards — get a self-inking stamp with your more immediate contact information — your name, your email, and phone number.
My husband offloads his working memory to a pocket notebook.
Once he left it at a coffee shop.
Within twenty minutes, he got a text that someone had found the notebook and left it with the barista. He had his name, email, and phone number in it, so it was easy to return.
The name, email, phone number stamp helps your notebooks find their way home.
I also stamp my name, email and phone number on index cards that I carry in my purse. Comes in very handy if you want to drop something off somewhere and leave a note. Or, let’s say, you want to pre-order a book from your friendly local bookstore. Scrawl out the book title on the index card you’ve stamped with your name, email, and phone number. Your contact information will be legible, even if the book title is not! (Then they can get back to you, and ask what the title was, of the book you wanted…)
Other custom stamps I use and love:
the names of my blogs, for when I make drawings for the blogs and want to “sign” them. This is also shameless advertising!
a stamp with my name on it, in italic calligraphy, with a vintage illustration* from a children’s book, of running chickens.
Well …. admittedly, no one NEEDS a stamp with running chickens on it. But I use this one a lot, because it makes me laugh. It’s in all my notebooks, and it’s great for creating instant stationery.
With custom stamps you can order just about any kind of font. You can add logos or drawings. You can order self-inking stamps with various ink colors. And you have even more color selection if you go with ink pads instead of self-inking.
And, did I mention that it is fun?
Oh, yes; I said that already.
And it is. Fun, I mean, to use custom stamps.
NOTES
* Be sure you have copyright permission for any images you upload for custom stamps.