The Lost Art of Postcard Writing

Tina of the always lovely English Muse blog has a great post about a Charles Simic essay in the New York Review of Books, in which he mourns the scarcity of holiday postcards. Highly recommended for BPS members, needless to say. Fun fact about the English Muse — I designed the banner for it!


(lovely photo by moline via the english muse — thanks to giulia for the referral)

Snail Mail My Email

This is an intriguing idea — Snail Mail My Email is a month long, interactive art project transforming people's emails to handwritten letters that are physically mailed, completely free of charge. Find out more here.

Address Your Mail

Love this vintage British poster from 1957, demonstrating how to address your mail correctly. Designed by Leonard Beaumont.


(from the british postal museum & archive on flickr, via els 50)

Globe and Mail Illustration

Hello all! I thought BPS members might be interested in an illustration I did for the Globe and Mail newspaper today, accompanying a Facts and Arguments piece by Paige Raymond Kovach about her great aunt's long tradition of letter writing to family members — and how it's created happy memories that continue to this day. Read the article here.


(illustration by me)

Brazil Postcard Exchange Update

A quick note for BPS members participating in the Brazil postcard exchange with Hane — she's had a bit of a setback as she didn't get the financial support she'd hoped for, but this month Hane's changing to a new (and better!) job and will be looking into starting the exchange at her new workplace once she's settled in. I'll update you again once I have more news, too.


(vintage brazil postcard via miludica on flickr)

For BPS Members Only

Just for BPS members — a little advance notice about a rather special giveaway on my automatism blog tomorrow! I'll be giving away a set of six collectable stamps produced by the Royal Mail, celebrating the work of the world renowned design house Morris & Co. For a chance to win one of five presentation packs, stop by automatism tomorrow and leave a comment. They're gorgeous — I know you'll love them!

xo


(photo by me)

BPS Badges

You might recall that my fab designer pal Clare designed some gorgeous BPS badges for members to display on their sites — and then I promptly forgot to upload jpg versions here so we could all actually use them. D'oh. Well, at long last here they are, over in the right sidebar — just drag and drop. The large ones are 250 x 250 and the small ones are 125 x 125 — please let me know if you need another size. So horribly sorry for this being so late!!

Postcards

I've been doing another batch of postcard scanning for the BPS book, and just had to share this lovely one by BPS member Mari, commemorating the project. So wonderful.

Surrealism in the Pre-School Years

Check out this fascinating article in Design Observer about the book Babylon: Surreal Babies, dedicated to a set of postcards from the collection of the British art dealer James Birch. The postcards feature babies in very odd and surreal photo collages, and are dated from between 1900 and 1920. Kinda freaky, actually.

Postcard for Japan

Love this charming postcard by Hsin Ping on etsy — and even nicer, all sales of it go towards Japan earthquake and tsunami relief. Get one here.

Something Pretty

Nothing new — just a pretty postcard photo to share. Hope you're having a good week.


(photo by Jon Day)

automatism vintage

A quick note to let you know that I've added new titles — and updated many of the current ones with freshly shot photos — on automatism vintage, my vintage book shop on etsy. Hope you can pop by for a look — I know that postcard people are often bookish people!

:-)


(photo by me)

What's New

Sorry for the long pause between posts — it's been busy! But now that the final deadline for postcard mailing has come and gone, I can really get started on the BPS book. Presently it's a lot of organizing, but I'm looking forward to putting it all together and seeing it turn into a real live book.

And I'll try to post here a little more regularly, too!

xo


(lovely photo by Roland Bello)

Last Call

A few tardy packages of BPS postcards have trickled in through January and February — which is great, but waiting for them has meant that I've delayed getting started on the book. So, final cut off date for mailing your postcards in is March 5 — anything postmarked after that date will not be included in the BPS book. Sorry about that, but I do need to start this soon! Thanks for your understanding.


(photo via nice room)

Penny Dreadfuls

This post is a little late, but I just had to share a link to the cynically amusing slideshow recently posted on Design Observer. Penny dreadfuls (or vinegar valentines) were 19th century insult greetings sent out on Valentine's Day — though the slideshow includes some later examples of the genre, too. I shudder to think that anyone actually got one of these in the mail! Have a look at the slideshow here.