AIGA Takes a Fresh Look at Sending ♥ Through the Mail

We ♥ Bradbury Thompson. I collaborated with Trenton Kenagy, AIGA’s Creative Director, so he could design around the tiny glassine envelope (size: #1) of stamps that would be tipped on to each valentine. The text provides design details about the typographic finesse Thompson lavished on these tiny pieces of paper.

I quickly acquired the vintage Thompson stamps from two dealers, and then charmed a pair of friends into helping me tear the stamps apart and arrange them in their little glassines. (The friends are very epistolary—not only prolific, but also adventurous. They have successfully mailed each other: a post card whose message was stitched, with its spool of thread still attached; a glove with a stitched on address tag; and vinyl 45 records.)

Aldine, a specialty printer in Manhattan, embraced the production scenario and timetable. The valentine fronts are letterpress printed in two colors on Strathmore Impress 100% (luscious) Pure Cotton Wove Ultimate White 104 cover. Aldine printed the backs digitally, on a separate press sheet, and then duplexed the two sheets together. This ensured that there’s no impression on the back of the valentine from the two letterpress passes on the front.

“We also ♥ hearing from you.” The back of the valentine invites the recipient to send a note, postmarked by February 14 (That’s today!), to AIGA. “Tell us something you ♥ about receiving (or sending!) Slow Mail.”

The America’s Libraries stamp (1982) is a gem of typographic elegance, not only in the A-B-C and X-Y-Z, but also in the denomination. Zero in on it, and you’ll see what Thompson did to make the 20 look balanced.

Each president’s valentine includes the stamp for his or her chapter’s state. Thompson’s set of 50 State Birds & Flowers (1982) neatly accommodates names of dramatically varying lengths. He angled an ampersand in the lower right corner, running the bird name along the bottom and the flower name up the right edge. This treatment works perfectly whether your state bird is a robin (Michigan and Wisconsin) or a black-capped chickadee (Massachusetts), and whether your state flower is a rose (New York) or a saguaro cactus blossom (Arizona).

The envelopes we mailed the valentines in are also part of the Strathmore Impress line. Each recipient received an A7 Strathmore Impress envelope either in Light Pink, Light Grey, or Ultimate White, with current 1st Class postage, effortlessly ordered at usps.com.

Kenagy also designed a return address “cancellation stamp,” which was made for the project lickety-split at Casey Rubber Stamps right in Manhattan. Stamping the return address in the upper left adds a bit of branding, while visually balancing the postage stamp. It also provides some anticipation for recipients who have signed up for Informed Delivery from the USPS.

Anixter comments, “AIGA is committed to bridging the physical and digital realms in all forms of communication. Informed Delivery—a major innovation from the U.S. Postal Service—enables designers to do just that via the most personal and tactile of media: real mail.”

Here’s the grayscale preview of my valentine as seen in my Informed Delivery Daily Digest. And if you aren’t informed yet about Informed Delivery (or even if you are), check out Thoroughly Modern Mail, an AIGA webcast conversation with Bob Dixon, Director of Product Innovation for the USPS; AIGA Fellow Alyson Kuhn (a.k.a. the Maven of Mail); and Julie Anixter. We hope you’ll ♥ it.

• Client: AIGA National, New York, NY
• Creative Direction: Alyson Kuhn, Carmel, CA
• Design: Trenton Kenagy, AIGA National
• Printer: Aldine Printing, New York, NY
• Paper Stock: Valentine – Strathmore Impress Pure Cotton Wove Ultimate White Digital with i-Tone 104 Cover (2 sheets duplexed) / Envelopes – A7 Strathmore Impress Pure Cotton Smooth Light Grey, Light Pink, and Ultimate White — both from the Elevated Collection
• Printing: Valentine front, letterpress Pantone Red 032 and Process Black; valentine back, printed digitally on an HP Indigo 7000; duplexed.
• Finishing: Glassine envelopes affixed with single strip of double-stick tape. Red-bordered Dennison gummed address labels (No. 31-207) typed on an IBM Selectric II. Return address rubber stamped with gusto.