POSTAL ICON

POSTAL ICON


MR. ZIP REACHES EMPLOYMENT MILESTONE



Mr. ZIP, the wide–eyed, uniformed, cartoon figure of a letter carrier, marks his 47th birthday this month.



Faced with growing mail volumes, the Department of the Post Office developed the 5–digit Zone Improvement Plan code, or ZIP Code, as a way to quickly sort mail and speed its delivery. Mr. ZIP was created to convince Americans to use ZIP codes — launched July 1, 1963 — to move the mail faster and more efficiently.



Mr. ZIP — who has no first name — wasn’t always a postal employee. The figure was designed by Harold Wilcox, son of a letter carrier and a member of the Cunningham and Walsh advertising agency, for use by Chase Manhattan Bank in New York in a bank–by–mail campaign. Wilcox’s design was a childlike sketch of a postman delivering a letter. The figure was used only a few times, and then filed away.



The American Telephone and Telegraph Company acquired the design from the Cunningham and Walsh agency and made it available to the Post Office Department without cost. The new figure, dubbed Mr. ZIP, was unveiled at a convention of Postmasters in October 1962.



“Mr. ZIP helped make the business of conducting commerce in America through the mail more efficient, reliable and cost–effective,” said USPS Historian Meg Ausman.



With the introduction of the 9–digit ZIP Code, or ZIP+4, in 1983, Mr. ZIP went into partial retirement. His image still was printed on the selvage of some sheets of stamps, but that practice ended in January 1986. Mr. ZIP still is used occasionally by the Postal Service — including at ZIP Code Lookup on usps.com.

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