It is likely that in a box, in the basement, under the stairs, underneath another box, is a piece of mail that changed my life forever.
In this box, in the basement, under the stairs, underneath another box, is a pile of illustrations, photos and mail that I collected, and coveted, while working at my first ‘real’ job out of school. I worked for a company called SBG and we designed super big, commercial packaging and branding programs for companies like Starbucks, Nestle, Aquafresh, Nestle and Nestle! Did I mention Nestle?
Anyway, back in the day (in the late 90’s) we used to get bombarded with direct mail from illustrators and photographers who thought we had the ability to hire them for potential jobs. Being that we worked for companies like, say… Nestle, we usually weren’t able to do anything too creative, awesome or otherwise – so it was rare that we got to hire a new, fantastic illustrator for a project. But that didn’t stop the mail from coming. Every day, envelopes and postcards arrived at my desk, and it was great. For someone like me, who loves mail so much, this was a real treat!
One day, the most amazing thing happened. Amidst a pile of glossy postcards with mediocre illustrations, there was a smallish, flat glassine bag with my name on it, sewn shut with red thread. You could sort of see through the glassine material, enough to see that there was a stack of postcards with beautiful images on them, but I can’t tell you what was on the postcards because I never opened the envelope!
At this point in my life, glassine only meant one thing to me: cookie or candy bags. In fact, I learned about glassine bags thanks to my very dear friend DB, who redesigned See’s candy packaging for a class in school. She introduced me to this beautiful, milky white, semi-translucent material that was great for packaging because the wax coating on it ensured that cookies or candies wouldn’t stain it with oil, like they would a paper bag, for example.
Anyway, this glassine bag/envelope sewn shut with red thread was pretty much the most amazing thing I had seriously ever received. It was SO different from everything else. It was a quiet powerful. It was intriguing and engaging. And I couldn’t bring myself to open it. I didn’t want to disrupt the beauty of the package. I put the glassine bag on my wall and stared at it. Every day.
Lucky for the woman who sent me the bag, she was smart enough to put her name on the outside of the envelope! In all caps trade gothic (a font) she wrote her name; Leigh Wells. Who was this woman of mystery? Who was this woman of mystery who had sent me the first piece of eye-opening, thought-provoking mail I ever received?
As it turns out, Leigh Wells was an incredible illustrator. She didn’t know me, so she never knew that I pitched her illustrations to my bosses for every single project I worked on! She didn’t know that her little mail affected me that much, and that I spent months and months designing around her artwork, so that I could HOPEFULLY reciprocate the awesomeness of her mail, and hire her to do a job for me.
Cut to December 2010. Sitting at my computer, designing some fabulous wedding invitation or something – likely being sent out in some sort of bag, sewn shut with thread (hypothetically speaking) and I get an email from one of my favorite interior design stores in San Francisco. Notice anything amazing?
