This company wants to help you put your seal of approval on company documents, even if they’re digital!
While in many countries around the world, a signature with an ink pen is taken as verification that you accept or approve of whatever terms a set of paperwork is offering, in Japan, it’s customary to instead use a hanko, or signature stamp. Usually done with red ink and used for contracts, applications, and within workplaces, hanko stamps are a staple of Japanese business culture.
However, these stamps are now proving to be a roadblock in businesses, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. With teleworking on the rise, paperwork has turned digital, so what’s a section manager to do when he or she needs to sign off on an electronic document?
Luckily, 100-year-old hanko maker Irie Meisyodo is here to help. For the month of May, they have been offering free digital designs of personal hanko stamps so that you can continue to use your seal of approval, even on digital documents.
You might be thinking, “I can just make my own with free graphic editing software!” But in a work environment, you want your stamp to look professional, don’t you? That’s why Irie Meisyodo has been offering their free service; so that businessmen and women can have a unique digital stamp hand-designed by an expert hanko carver to use for your work.
The digital stamps come in the classic styles of using the family name or a portion of the first name along with the family name. The characters are written in a “semi-cursive” style, so when digitized, they become a completely original design that only you will have.
▼ The design starts out handwritten and is cleaned up and digitized into the final version.
You can choose between a circular or oval design, and can select the size of the design, so that the stamp will fit exactly your needs. Once it’s created, you’ll be able to download the digital stamp in either PNG or PDF form, and it will be compatible for use with most online contracts as well as Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Office. They’ll also come with a transparent background, so they can be used to “stamp” over words and names, as you would with a physical stamp.
Irie Meisyodo originally planned to offer the free stamp design service until May 31, but despite not offering cool customization options like adding your favorite Pokémon to the design, it became so popular that they were unable to keep up with demand, and so they had to end the service early. Hopefully they’ll start selling the service soon so that everyone can have a professional digital seal!
Source, images: PR Times
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