TACF Articles

In the past, a letter was sealed by a wax seal. This seal served two purposes of providing a tamper-evident closure for the envelope and identifying the correspondent. These days, we have envelopes that close with lickable glue or self-sticking glue. The sender identification is provided by return address labels that are stuck in the upper-left corner of the envelope. These address labels can be undecorated, or you can order custom-printed labels. Custom-printed labels can have a small decoration for your envelopes, and any small decoration is an advantage.

Most people look forward to the arrival of the daily postal delivery. Even though the mailbox usually holds nothing more exciting than junk mail or bills, it often contains the treat of a catalog. Sometimes, however, our sense of anticipation and suspense is rewarded with something personal, such as a greeting card or a travel postcard. We look forward to receiving such a token from a person we love. These tokens of love and remembrance can cheer us up more than any email message or instant message could ever do.

The old saying, To have a friend, be a friend, can be morphed into a new saying that says, To receive mail, send mail. But beyond just a message that can be saved in your treasure box, a message can be made more memorable by making it artful as well as meaningful. Begin with the message within. The simplest presentation is a thoughtful hand-written note on plain but nice stationery. The next step up is stationery with some adornment or small illustration that expresses the personality of the sender. If the paper is colored, most likely the envelope will be colored, too. The colored envelope stands out from the bills and junk mail as a harbinger of a coming pleasure.

Even more fun is a greeting card. Even if its just a simple thank you card, always, always write a short note to the person. Of course, we’ve all seen greeting cards with an envelope that is more brightly colored than any stationery envelope. These provide a truly festive spot in the mailbox. Getting back to address labels, now that you have an envelope that stands out for your distinctive personal message, decorate it further with a custom-printed address label.

Before we are finished with the topic of personal mail, lets look at the address on the front of the envelope. The United States Postal Service has published guidelines for the mailing address on the envelope. The Service wants you to type the address in all capital letters without any punctuation. The final line of the address should contain the city, state, and ZIP code. The previous line this should contain the street address. If there is a suite or apartment number, these should be on the same line as the street address and not below it. Since reading all capital letters is difficult in a typeface with serifs, it is better to use a sans-serif typeface such as Arial rather than one with serifs, such as Times New Roman.