Letter Writers Alliance

Sundry Security Envelope Patterns

Searching "security" on our blog comes up with a number of hits for things do with and ways to admire the beauty of the patterns inside security printed envelopes. A security envelope is an envelope that has a printed pattern inside to keep the documents within away from prying eyes. Through a tweet from stationery purveyor and Instagram genius Present&Correct, I found this site which is attempting to catalog all of the patterns found inside security (also called "safety") envelopes. There's a nice history of the envelope in the About section as well. Do you have a favorite? Is it in the catalog?

P.S. They also linked to this listing of artist books featuring the patterns.

Letters Outside the Box

The first letter to start off the pen pal relationship.

A few weeks ago I got an interesting letter from LWA member David Solomon. He wrote to us about how he became pen pals with a friend of a friend, who he didn't know, and how it turned into an amazing pen pal relationship.

At first, they mailed letters conventionally through USPS, but then David thought of another way to deliver letters to his new pen pal Tiffany.

Voice recorder with an audio letter tape & the box it came in that Tiffany left under David's car

Drop locations, scavenger hunts, audio letters - without even thinking about it, they were expanding what their personal correspondence could be. Here is an excerpt from David's letter explaining how this started:

She was also a student at FSU. In the Fall, I sent her a short letter telling her to go to the campus library and go to a certain floor and look for a certain book and flip to a certain page. In this book was another book she was to go to. And so on until she ended up at the National Geographic section of the library to find a handmade booklet made for her including random things such as a play I wrote for her, a to-do list, recommended reading, a poem, etc. This started our new correspondence via a drop spot in the library.

We walked the same paths, but never saw each other, which added some excitement and intimacy to our relationship. Two years later and we are still friends. In fact, I consider her my best friend...and yet, we have spent no time in the other's presence.
        - Personal correspondence with David Solomon

A photo Tiffany took of herself reading the zine David made her, which was the final object of the scavenger hunt he sent her on in the library. She's reading it right where she found it.

I think this speaks volumes of how intimate letter writing and the pen pal relationship can be. This also is a great example of how letter writing can be expanded upon, outside of the realm of envelopes, or even paper. Perhaps this will give Initiative Response participants some ideas for their "Out of the Box" tasks?

Thank you to David and Tiffany for allowing me to share their story with fellow LWAers.

-Kathy

P.S. David has been recording his astounding outgoing mail on his blog Because I Really Felt It. I was extra impressed by his "Book as Envelope" mailing.

-Donovan

Letter Writing

A lovely illustration titled Letter Writing by 19th century Swedish artist Carl Larsson. I'll be sharing some more artwork with letters and letter writing as the subject matter over the next few weeks. I hope you enjoy them and they inspire you to pick up a pen and moisten a stamp.

Mailboxes

Image by Taboada Testa

Two Flickr groups for your pleasure:
Postbox Lovers
and
Mailboxes & Letterboxes

If anyone knows of other groups that "collect" mailboxes, mail slots and so forth, add to this list by commenting with their url.

Philatelic

I just bumped into this lovely site full to the brim with stamps from around the world. It's unfortunate that the website is entirely in Japanese, but that doesn't take away from perusing their offerings purely for eye candy. All the stamps they have are for sale (and there is quite a variety), so if you know Japanese or happen to have a good webpage translator, you'll be able to pick a few up for yourself.

Eye Candy

A wonderful little correspondence inspired illustration from Fuko Kawamura.

Picture Letter

I found this neat picture-letter written by C.F.A. Voysey to his grandchildren. I know there is a certain term for this type of letter, but I can't remember it right now. Sorry for the low image quality, but I had to scan it from a photocopy. I hope you can get the idea none-the-less.


It reads: "My dear grand children, I hope you are busy working at something nice for someone. Service is the safest road to happiness. You will delight in realizing the pleasure you give to others. I would like to know what things you most delight in, and do something that adds to your well being."

Voysey was an Arts & Crafts architect and designer.

Neat Handwriting

From Typophile. See larger here.

Chicago Postcard Museum

The Chicago Postcard Museum's mission is to present the history of Chicago through it's picture postcards and correspondence. They self-describe their goal as "to serve as the world's resource for Chicago postcard images and visual history on the Internet and to provide to the general public an archive for research and enjoyment."

They are an online resource of postcards featuring Chicago from the late 1800s to today. All of their images are free to use, as long as you follow the rules. The best part, in my mind, is that if you send them a postcard, they will put it up in their Correspondence Corner. How cool is that?! Let's all send them postcards! Their address is:
Chicago Postcard Museum
780 West Army Trail Road, #208
Carol Stream, IL 60188

I was at first disappointed by the fact that they were only a virtual museum, but, as an internet community for the preservation of letter writing, {a task which has been in decline perhaps because of the internet} I can appreciate our mutual irony.

Let's travel to...

image © jen

Jen of Simply Photo has a neat little project called Let's travel to... where she asks people from around the globe to fill out a little questionaire regarding their city. The questions cover their favorite spots while the accompanying photos let you place yourself there. Jen posts the handwritten forms as they are mailed to her as well as the photos. A very cool idea indeed.