Sweet readers, this is your pre-preview of something very fresh, and a long time coming…
Hold a vintage postcard in your hand and flip it front to back.
On the front, usually an idealized world. Sun-drenched beaches, pristine mountain vistas, city streets captured at their most photogenic moments. Designed to say, “Wish you were here!”
Flip it over, and you find something entirely different. The back reveals the personal, the quixotic, sometimes the magically mundane.
“Weather awful, hotel terrible, a bit bothered by a smelly seatmate on the plane, but having a wonderful time anyway.”
Postcards fascinate me precisely because they embody all of life. They’re both public and personal, both idealized and achingly real. They bring the past forward in time, making unexpected connections with family, friends, and special places—revealing who we have been along the way.
On a very old postcard, the handwriting of someone long gone comes alive again right before our eyes. A jotted note gives us a new view into their private world. Their words leap over the decades to reach us. There is a lush creative commons between now and then, a liminal green lawn to lounge on and take in the cool air.
I have lived happily in those in-between spaces for the last few years. Somewhere in the middle of my life and career and enjoying myself in the meantime. Not where I was before, and both curious and terrified about what comes next.
Well friends, like the best summer novel, the plot thickens.
Starting in September, The Posted Past officially launches a new phase as a social enterprise, inspired by the simple truth that we can trade loneliness for connection, one postcard at a time.
We have already done it, friends!
As one of my earliest subscribers, you have enjoyed (I hope!) an essay every Wednesday for the last year. Going forward, you’ll still get those delightful diversions that remind us we are more than we knew. I’ll also offer sneak peeks at rare postcard finds, each one a small treasure with its own story to tell.
Old or new, postcards have a job to do.
Along the way, I have fallen in love with making and receiving Art Cards. My brother started mailing the lovely landscape watercolors he does when insomnia strikes. A collage free-for-all at the local gallery had me re-inspired by the ‘ransom note’ style I used to do as a teenager. Blink-blink… I found myself dreaming up fabulous cards to make.
Art cards celebrate the artist in all of us. I particularly love collage and watercolor, but truly an art card can be made with scraps. Sometimes the most satisfying work comes from simple gestures, too. Slow down enough to make something with your hands, and then send it away to make someone’s day.
Coming this fall, The Posted Past will feature an online gallery where you can browse through handmade artwork that has traveled across time and space, carrying all the marks of love, adventure, and everyday life. Call for submissions now open, mail your art card to: The Posted Past, P.O. Box 24431, Tempe, AZ 85285.
Abundance can be overwhelming, and it’s not always easy. Right now, I feel both confident and queasy. But, I’m not alone. Here’s how you can help.
Become a paid subscriber—hit the button below to support the effort
Pre-order an Art Card Collage Kit (coming soon!) for your own creative fun
Make an art card and send it to us—be first in the online gallery show!
Though we revel in real life, the handmade, and the historic, The Posted Past is also meant to be super social. Excuse our dust, and help us get started!
Browse the collection of vintage postcards on eBay and follow the store
Both/and. Past and future. Solitude and connection. Cardboard curiosities and some larger-than-life dreams. Thank you for being here together. Keep an eye on your inbox and mailbox—September is full of surprises!
Mid-century postcards captured the wonder of American road trips in vivid color. This Phoenix to Grand Canyon collection reveals the story of car trips, roadside shops, and the natural landscape of Arizona.
Rural Route Arizona
The Phoenix to Grand Canyon route via Oak Creek Canyon carved through America’s most scenic territory. In the 1940s and 1950s, this remained wild, undeveloped country. Starting in Phoenix, travelers navigated winding two-lane roads through Wickenburg, Yarnell, Prescott, Jerome, Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Flagstaff, and Williams.
Each stop pulsed with its own character. Jerome clung to mountainsides, mining copper. Prescott sprawled as a ranching center and former territorial capital. Wickenburg lured visitors with dude ranch culture. Williams crowned itself “Gateway to the Grand Canyon.” These weren’t pit stops but destinations, each welcoming tourist dollars from America’s growing car culture.
Postcard Economy
These postcards bear the stamp of Curt Teich & Co., a Chicago printing giant that drove America’s postcard industry from the 1930s through 1960s. German immigrant Curt Teich founded the company in 1898 and revolutionized postcard production. His linen postcards introduced soft textures and blazing colors.
Teich built an industrial empire through local connections. Photographers roamed America, documenting main streets and natural wonders. In Chicago, artists hand-colored black and white photographs, enhancing reality to seduce buyers and ultimately define a social aesthetic.
Behind every postcard rack stood a web of relationships, too. Hotel owners, gas station attendants, and gift shop operators ordered cards from Teich’s catalog or commissioned custom designs featuring their establishments. Postcards advertised businesses, provided affordable souvenirs, and satisfied the social duty to send word home.
Long-distance calls cost fortunes. Letter-writing devoured time. Postcards offered quick connection and proof of adventure. They were quick and easy evidence that the sender had escaped ordinary life for landscapes of impossible beauty. For travelers, buying and mailing postcards proved both pretty and practical.
The typical buyer belonged to America’s emerging middle class, newly mobile through car ownership and paid vacations. Families drove from California to see the Grand Canyon. Retirees took first cross-country trips. Young couples honeymooned across the Southwest. Many experienced the American West for the first time. Postcards helped them process and share encounters with the sublime.
Selecting, writing, and mailing postcards became part of American vacation ritual. Weather beautiful, wish you were here—heartfelt sentiments that bridge extraordinary experience and ordinary communication.
These postcards transcend tourist kitsch. They document a pivotal moment when the West was packaged and sold as leisure destination. Enhanced colors and idealized compositions reflect not just Arizona’s appearance, but how Americans wanted to see it—as endless possibility, natural wonder, and escape from urban routine.
‘Greetings from…’ designs have rippled through visual culture for well over a century, telling the stories of how we see ourselves and our places.
A stone dropped into still water creates concentric circles that radiate outward. This physical phenomenon is a powerful metaphor for how cultural ideas spread through time and across media, especially visual motifs of place. Certain visual vocabularies persist, evolving with technologies while maintaining essential characteristics.
American statehood, regional identity, and natural heritage have rippled through various media over the past century. Iconic ‘large letter’ postcards, commemorative postal stamps, murals and more—all help us trace a fascinating journey of cultural transmission through the broader currents in American history, industrial development, and visual communication.
Gruss Aus… from Germany
“Greetings From…” postcards emerged in 1890s Germany. The early examples of Gruss Aus cards featured the name of a location rendered in bold, three-dimensional letters with miniature scenes of local landmarks contained within. More common postcards of the day feature detailed illustrations of castles and later photographs. This new design cleverly packed maximum visual information into the limited space, creating an instantly recognizable format that would soon spread internationally.
New American Icons
The transmission of this visual language to America came through a German immigrant named Curt Teich, who arrived in the United States in 1895. After establishing his printing company in Chicago in 1898, Teich would transform American visual culture through the mass production of postcards. Following a visit to Germany in 1904, he successfully imported the Gruss Aus style to the American market, adapting it to suit American sensibilities and landscapes.
The true flowering of Teich’s vision came in 1931 with the introduction of his linen-textured postcards. Printed on high-quality paper with a distinctive fabric-like texture, these cards employed vibrant colors and airbrushing techniques that created a hyperreal aesthetic. The technical innovation of the linen card allowed for faster drying times and more saturated colors, resulting in postcards that depicted America in an optimistic, idealized light—a stark contrast to the harsh realities of the Great Depression era in which they first appeared.
Teich’s business savvy was as important as his technical innovations. He employed hundreds of traveling salesmen who photographed businesses and worked with owners to create idealized images for postcards. This approach not only generated business but also shaped how Americans visualized their own landscapes and communities. The Curt Teich Company would eventually produce over 45,000 different linen postcard subjects in just two decades.
The visual language of these postcards—bold lettering, vibrant colors, and idealized scenes—became firmly embedded in American visual culture during the 1930s through 1950s. As automobile ownership increased and the highway system expanded, these postcards played a crucial role in shaping Americans’ understanding of their own geography and national identity. They were both records of places visited and aspirational images of places to be seen.
State Birds and Flowers
Parallel to the development of the large letter postcard, another form of state-based visual identity was taking root—the formal designation of state birds and flowers. Most American states adopted these symbols between the 1920s and 1940s, often through campaigns involving schoolchildren, women’s clubs, and conservation organizations.
These officially designated natural symbols provided another vocabulary for expressing regional identity, one rooted in the natural world rather than the built environment. While large letter postcards typically highlighted human achievements—city skylines, hotels, roadways—state birds and flowers emphasized the distinctive natural heritage of each region. Together, these complementary systems of regional representation provided Americans with a rich visual language for their diverse nation.
In 1978, the Fleetwood company commissioned father-son wildlife artists Arthur and Alan Singer to create 50 original paintings of state birds and flowers. These watercolor paintings caught the attention of U.S. Postal Service officials, who recognized their exceptional quality and decided to feature them on commemorative stamps. Released on April 14, 1982, the 20-cent State Birds and Flowers stamp collection was another big moment in the ripple effect.
Arthur Singer painted the birds while his son Alan rendered the flowers, creating unique artwork for each of the 50 stamps. The collaboration between father and son added another dimension to this cultural transmission—the passing of artistic traditions and approaches from one generation to the next.
The Fleetwood company published a complete album featuring First Day Covers of these stamps. These decorative envelopes included additional information about each state’s natural heritage, creating a beautifully bound volume that was both aesthetically pleasing and informative. The Birds & Flowers of the 50 States album is now a cherished collectible, a visual catalog of national natural heritage in a single, beautifully presented format.
Greetings from the Post Office
Twenty years later, the visual language of the large letter postcard experienced a revival through another stamp collection. On April 4, 2002, the USPS issued the ‘Greetings from America’ stamps, designed by Richard Sheaff and illustrated by Lonnie Busch. These stamps paid direct homage to the large letter postcards of the 1930s and 1940s, recreating their distinctive style for a new generation.
Each of the 50 stamps featured the name of a state in large, three-dimensional letters containing images of iconic landmarks and scenic vistas. The stamps were initially released as 34-cent denominations, but due to a rate change, they were reissued with 37-cent denominations on October 25, 2002. Here is another circular moment—a postal medium paying tribute to a postcard tradition that had itself been a popular means of commemorating places visited.
These stamps connected with older Americans who remembered the original postcards. Younger generations encountering the style for the first time recognized both the nostalgic and contemporary appeal. The vibrant colors and bold, three-dimensional lettering still effectively communicated a sense of place and regional pride, proving again the resilience of this visual vocabulary.
Even Larger Letters
Artists Victor Ving and Lisa Beggs took the large letter postcard to a whole new scale. Starting in 2015, the Greetings Tour has produced dozens of murals that transform the two-dimensional postcard design into monumental public art.
A grand dimensional leap—a design meant to be held in the hand scaled to the size of a building. The murals maintain the core visual elements of the large letter design while incorporating contemporary references and local touchstones. In a delightful twist, these murals have themselves become tourist attractions with visitors posing for social media. The postcard mural is now a backdrop for new images to be shared globally.
The artists also create custom digital designs for corporations, events, and retail spaces, maintaining the vintage aesthetic while adapting it to contemporary contexts. This commercialization represents another ripple in the cultural transmission of the large letter design, as it moves from public art back into the commercial realm that originally produced the linen postcards.
Digital Doppelgangers
As graphic design software became increasingly sophisticated and accessible in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the visual language of large letter postcards found new life in digital recreations. Graphic design tools enable designers to quickly recreate the distinctive three-dimensional lettering and image-filled characters of the classic postcards.
AI Generation
Online design platforms have further opened access to this aesthetic, offering templates that approximate the large letter style without requiring specialized skills. Now small businesses, community organizations, and individuals can incorporate elements of this visual tradition into their communications, expanding the reach of this design vocabulary beyond professional designers.
With a phrase like “create an image of a vintage large letter postcard from Arizona,” most anyone can generate a decent design in seconds. Like the old days of digital clip-art, the initial attempts lack craftsmanship and historical accuracy. Still, they are a new democratization of this visual vocabulary, making it more accessible to professional designers and enthusiasts alike, though perhaps for different reasons.
This latest development completes a fascinating loop—from specialized industrial printing processes that required substantial investment and technical expertise, to digital design tools requiring professional training, to AI generation requiring only the ability to formulate a design concept and the text prompt. With each technological advancement, the barriers to producing these distinctive visual representations have lowered, while the core elements of the design has persisted.
Visual Persistence
From German Gruss Aus postcards to AI-generated images—our journey demonstrates the remarkable resilience of certain visual vocabularies across time, technologies, and cultural contexts. Despite dramatic changes in production methods, from specialized lithographic presses to neural networks, the essential visual grammar of these designs remains recognizable.
This persistence has a woven quality—the ability to render and replicate a sense of place over time. Whether in linen postcards, commemorative stamps, public murals, or digital images, the large letter design and state symbol motifs combine to convey regional identity and pride over time. Their continued relevance suggests that certain visual solutions, once discovered, become an architecture that generations continue to appreciate and adapt for new uses.
We also feel the ripple effect in the broader patterns of American history— immigrants bringing skills and technology to American shores, industrial innovation creating new visual possibilities, the automobile age changing how Americans experienced nature and themselves, and digital technology transforming how we create and share images. Through it all, the distinctive visual language pioneered by Curt Teich and others continues to evolve.
What new ripples lie ahead? Perhaps augmented reality will allow us to step into these designs. Or new materials and technologies will adapt them yet again for uses we don’t yet comprehend. Whatever comes next, we know that cultural transmission does have a distinguishing mark—it ripples outward in both calculable and unexpected ways, influenced by technology, economics, and human inspiration, creating patterns that can be traced across generations.
For Additional Reading
Meikle, Jeffrey L. (2016). Postcard America: Curt Teich and the Imaging of a Nation, 1931-1950. University of Texas Press. Publisher’s page
“The Immigrant Story Behind the Classic ‘Greetings From’ Postcards.” Smithsonian Magazine. (2018). Read online
Alongside any earnest effort to declutter, minimize, or embrace a modest lifestyle, there are delightful rebellions brewing in the corners of our homes, on our bookshelves, and in our hearts. Collecting – postcards, stamps, or any manner of curious objects – is among a great many pastimes that bring us joy.
Let’s start with a set of floral letter postcards that captured my heart and imagination recently. For me, they’re time capsules from the Edwardian era, each one a miniature masterpiece of design and sentiment.
Delicate flowers intertwine with bold capital letters, spelling out affectionate greetings to mothers and fathers, aunts and cousins, and more. Blue irises dance around pink and gold lettering, while red roses form the word ‘cousin’ against a dramatic dark background. It’s Victorian drama meets Art Nouveau flair, all condensed into a 3.5 x 5.5 inch rectangle. The colors are vibrant, defying the century they have traveled to meet our modern eyes.
But why do these particular postcards make my collector’s heart skip a beat? It’s not just their undeniable aesthetic appeal, though that’s certainly part of it. They’re windows into history, offering glimpses of a time when sending a beautifully designed card was a primary way of keeping in touch with loved ones. Each handwritten message on the back (like the one postmarked July 10, 1909) is a tiny slice of someone’s life, preserved for over a century.
Thrill of the Hunt and the Joy of Design
There’s also the thrill of the hunt. Finding a matching set among thousands of vintage postcards is like piecing together a particularly beautiful puzzle. Each new discovery brings an aha and a sense of completion. It’s a patience game, sure, but the payoff is worth it.
These postcards, with their intricate details and bold typography, have stood the test of time. They’re just as appealing now as they were when they were first printed. Collecting them isn’t just owning pretty objects – it’s a chance to examine, hold, preserve and share a piece of design history, a snapshot of the aesthetic sensibilities of a bygone era.
Collecting is deeply personal. While I pour over century-old postcards, my neighbor friend is curating an ever-expanding collection of adorable bird figurines. He’s particular about it too – they have to be a specific kind, from a specific place, at a specific price point. He watches the bird market, adds to his collection strategically. To a non-birder, it might seem quirky. But watch him arrange his birds, carefully considering where each one fits, and you’ll understand something profound about him: he’s a person who experiences quiet joys.
First and foremost, collecting is about falling in love with something uniquely suited to you. It’s about creating space in your life – physical and emotional – for the things that bring you joy. It’s about curating, admiring, and sharing a part of yourself through the objects you choose to surround yourself with. My friend curates his bird collection, brings them out by the seasons, delightful arrangements that invite family and friends to enjoy, too.
All the People, All the Collections
This philosophy extends far beyond postcards and bird figurines. Think about the philatelists out there, losing themselves in the minute details of postage stamps. Each tiny square is a work of art, a nugget of history, a passport to another time and place.
Or consider the sports enthusiasts, their shelves lined with signed jerseys and game-used equipment. For them, these aren’t just objects – they’re tangible connections to moments of athletic glory, to the heroes they admire.
History buffs might seek out Civil War relics or Space Age memorabilia, each artifact a physical link to events that shaped our world. And in our digital age, even contemporary collectibles are thriving. From limited edition vinyl figures to exclusive sneaker releases, people are finding new ways to express their passions through the objects they collect.
What unites all these diverse collecting interests? The deep connection to a particular passion or area of interest that only you can know. Whether it’s a century-old postcard or a just-released collectible figurine, these objects become repositories of personal meaning and cultural significance for their collectors.
Hobbies and Pastimes
Collecting, in its various forms, is just one of many popular ways Americans choose to spend their leisure time. Zoom out for a moment and consider the broader landscape of hobbies and pastimes in the United States.
Reading continues to be a widely enjoyed pastime, with many people diving into both physical books and digital formats. It’s an accessible hobby that caters to diverse interests and can be done almost anywhere.
Gardening has seen a surge in popularity, especially in recent years, as people seek to connect with nature and perhaps grow a bit of their own food. Cooking and baking remain perennially popular, with the rise of cooking shows and online recipes making it easier than ever for people to explore new cuisines and techniques at home.
Exercise and fitness activities, including running, cycling, and yoga, are on the rise as people focus more on health and wellness. Crafting hobbies like knitting, crocheting, and DIY projects have seen renewed interest, offering a creative outlet and the satisfaction of making something by hand.
Photography has become more widespread with the improvement of smartphone cameras, allowing more people to capture and share moments from their daily lives. Not only do I collect floral postcards, I take pictures of beautiful flowers every chance I get!
Hiking and outdoor activities are popular, and of course, sports – both playing and watching – continue to be a major part of American culture and a popular pastime for many.
Passion Has Purpose
What drives us to spend our precious free time on these pursuits? The benefits are numerous and far-reaching.
On a personal level, hobbies provide stress relief and relaxation. They offer an escape from daily pressures and can be a form of meditation, helping to reduce stress and anxiety. Many hobbies involve learning new skills or improving existing ones, which can boost self-confidence and cognitive function. They provide a creativity outlet, stimulating imagination and innovative thinking.
There’s also the sense of achievement that comes from completing projects or reaching milestones in a hobby. This can provide a significant boost to self-esteem and overall life satisfaction. Regular engagement in enjoyable activities can help combat depression and improve overall mood. Having a hobby encourages better time management as we carve out time for our interests. And perhaps most importantly, hobbies can become an integral part of our identity, providing a sense of purpose and self-definition outside of work or family roles.
Many hobbies involve communities of like-minded individuals, providing opportunities for social connection and friendship. Engaging with others who share your interests can help develop language, communication and interpersonal skills. Some hobbies, especially those involving arts, crafts, or cuisines from different cultures, can broaden cultural awareness and appreciation.
These pursuits can sometimes lead to unexpected networking opportunities, potentially beneficial for personal or professional growth. Shared hobbies can strengthen family relationships by providing common interests and shared experiences. Many hobbies appeal to people of all ages, facilitating connections across generations. And hobby communities often provide emotional support, advice, and encouragement, fostering a sense of belonging.
Many hobbies, particularly those involving physical activity, contribute to better overall health and fitness. Engaging in hobbies, especially those that challenge the mind, can help maintain cognitive function as we age. Skills learned through hobbies can sometimes translate into valuable job skills or even new career opportunities. Some hobbies can evolve into side businesses or income streams. And perhaps most importantly, hobbies provide a counterbalance to work and other responsibilities, contributing to a more well-rounded life.
So, whether you’re arranging a set of vintage postcards, nurturing a garden, mastering a new recipe, or climbing a mountain, know that you’re doing more than just passing time. You’re engaging in a fundamental human activity, one that brings joy, fosters growth, builds connections, and adds richness to life.
Finding Quiet Joys
In the end, our collections and hobbies are extensions of ourselves. They reflect our interests, our aesthetics, our values, and our histories. They give us a way to tangibly interact with our passions, to create order and meaning in a chaotic world, and to surround ourselves with objects and experiences that bring us joy and inspiration.
So the next time someone raises an eyebrow at your carefully curated collection of Star Wars figurines, or questions why you spend hours perfecting your sourdough technique, remember this: in pursuing your passions, you’re not just collecting things or passing time. You’re crafting your narrative, preserving memories, expressing your unique identity, and experiencing the quiet (or not so quiet) joys that make life rich and meaningful.
Among all our favorite postcard styles, large letter postcards stand out as evocative artifacts of memory, place, and time. What drives us to collect these small works of design, and what do they reveal about the places we’ve been—or dream of going?
In an age of digital communication and instant photo sharing, there’s something uniquely captivating about large letter postcards. These brightly colored, design-driven place markers have been carrying snippets of the world from person to person – and into collections – for over a century.
Postcard collecting, or deltiology, has been a popular hobby since the late 19th century. What makes postcards so appealing to collectors? For one, they’re relatively affordable and easy to store, making them accessible to collectors of all ages and means. But more than that, postcards offer a unique blend of visual appeal, historical significance, and personal connection.
To Collect is Human
Humans have been collectors for as long as we know. From prehistoric shells and stones to modern stamps and coins, the act of gathering and preserving token objects is a constant across cultures and eras. But why do we collect?
For collectors of large letter postcards one might choose to focus on cards from a particular state or region, tracing how the depiction of that place changed over time. It’s an exploration of how places have marketed themselves to tourists, of changing aesthetic tastes, and of the evolution of printing technology. Each card is a time capsule, preserving a particular vision of a place at a specific moment in history.
Alternatively, a collector might concentrate on the output of a specific publisher, such as Curt Teich & Co. or Tichnor Brothers, each of which had its own distinctive style. Serious collectors have checklists and databases, and keenly search for highly-prized cards that are known but still not found.
One part of collecting is about finding a comforting order in a sometimes chaotic world. By curating a set of objects, we apply our own structures and meanings onto a small corner of the universe. It’s a way of making sense of the world around us, and also of understanding, exploring, and appreciating our experiences.
Moreover, collections often serve as tangible links to our memories and experiences. Each item in a collection can evoke a specific moment in time, a particular place, or a cherished memory. In this way, our collections become autobiographies of sorts, telling the story of our lives through carefully curated objects.
Collecting also taps into our innate desire for completion. There’s a profound satisfaction in filling gaps in a collection, in finding that elusive item that will make our set whole. This pursuit in itself can become a lifelong passion, providing a sense of purpose and achievement.
Vicarious Views
Large letter postcards are miniature ambassadors from distant lands, carrying with them not just images but also the tangible evidence of their journey—postmarks, stamps, and handwritten messages.
The hunt for these postcards take collectors to antique shops, flea markets, and specialized postcard shows. Online marketplaces have made it easier to find specific cards, but for many collectors, the thrill of the hunt remains an important part of the hobby.
Each postcard is a snapshot of a particular place at a specific moment, and a unique chance to travel in time. From architecture and fashion to social customs and technological advancements, postcards provide valuable insights into the evolution of society.
The messages scrawled on their backs offer intimate glimpses into personal histories. A hurried “Wish you were here!” or a detailed account of a traveler’s adventures can be just as fascinating as the picture on the front.
Personal Place Holders
At the heart of collecting large letter postcards is our connections to place. Whether we’re collecting postcards from places we’ve visited or from far-flung locales we hope to see someday, each card in our collection represents a connection to a specific geographical location.
This connection to place is a fundamental aspect of human psychology. We are, by nature, territorial creatures, and we form strong emotional bonds with the places that are significant to us. These bonds can be with our hometowns, favorite vacation spots, or even places we’ve only ever dreamed of visiting.
Postcards allow us to carry a piece of these places with us. They serve as physical reminders of our travels, tangible links to the memories we’ve made in different corners of the world. For places we haven’t yet visited, postcards can fuel our wanderlust, providing glimpses of distant lands and cultures.
But our relationship with place isn’t always straightforward. In our increasingly globalized world, many of us find ourselves with multiple place affinities. We might have roots in one city, work in another, and care for family in a third. Postcards offer a way to express and explore these multiple connections to place. A collection might include cards from one’s birthplace, current home, ancestral homeland, and favorite travel destinations, reflecting the complex geography of one’s life and identity.
Design Dazzle
Large letter postcards hold a special place in the hearts of many collectors. These distinctive cards, which feature the name of a place spelled out in oversized letters filled with local scenes, represent a perfect marriage of place celebration and graphic design.
The heyday of large letter postcards was the mid-20th century, particularly in the United States. This was the era of automobile tourism, when families would pile into their cars for cross-country road trips. Large letter postcards became popular souvenirs, offering a bold, eye-catching way to say “I was here!”
What makes large letter postcards so appealing is their clever integration of text and image. The large letters dominate the card, immediately identifying the location. But within these letters, we find a series of miniature scenes—local landmarks, natural wonders, or typical activities associated with the place. It’s like a visual summary of a destination, condensed into a single, striking image.
From a design perspective, large letter postcards are a triumph of commercial art. They required considerable skill to create, with artists needing to balance the demands of legibility (the place name had to be easily readable) with the desire to include as many local scenes as possible. The result was often a masterpiece of composition and color, with every inch of the card put to effective use.
The style of these postcards evolved over time. Early examples from the 1930s often featured more space between the letters, with scenes depicted in a realistic style. By the 1950s, the letters had typically grown to fill the entire card, with more stylized, graphic representations of local scenes. This evolution reflects broader trends in graphic design and commercial art of the period.
Postcards in the Digital Age
In our era of smartphones and social media, one might expect the appeal of postcards to have diminished. Yet postcards, including modern versions of large letter designs, continue to be produced and collected. Why do these physical artifacts still resonate in a digital world?
Part of the answer lies in their tangibility. In a world where so much of our communication is ephemeral—tweets and status updates that scroll away into oblivion—there’s something deeply satisfying about holding a physical object that has traveled across distance to reach us.
Moreover, the very characteristics that might make postcards seem outdated—their slowness, their limitations—can be seen as virtues. In a world of information overload, the postcard’s constrained format can be refreshing.
For collectors, physical postcards offer a connection to history that digital images can’t quite match. The ability to hold a card that was printed decades ago, to see the handwriting of someone long gone, provides a visceral link to the past that resonates deeply with many people.
Passionate Postal Pursuits
Whether we’re talking about vintage large letter postcards or their modern equivalents, these small rectangular pieces of card stock are far more than just souvenirs. They are repositories of memory, snapshots of place, and artifacts of design history.
For collectors, each postcard is a thread in a complex tapestry of place, time, and personal experience. A large letter postcard from Miami might evoke memories of a childhood vacation, appreciation for mid-century graphic design, and curiosity about how the city has changed since the card was printed.
In a world where our connections to place are increasingly complex and multi-layered, postcard collections allow us to map our personal geographies. They give tangible form to our memories, our travels, and our dreams of future journeys.
Moreover, in their celebration of specific places, postcards—and large letter postcards in particular—remind us of the rich diversity of the world. In an era of globalization, where many fear a homogenization of culture, these cards stand as colorful testimony to the unique character of different locations.
So the next time you come across a rack of postcards in a gift shop, or spot a vintage large letter card in an antique store, take a moment to appreciate these small works of design. They are more than just pretty pictures or quaint relics. In their own small way, they help us make sense of our place in the world—and isn’t that, after all, what collecting is all about?
The Posted Past 