I love all of the boxed postcard collections that are being published these days. There's something of a resurgence of interest in mail art, snail mail correspondence, zines, and other mail-borne art forms and these postcard boxes might be a reflection of that. The amazing font designers, House Industries, published a postcard collection of their fonts a year ago and Princeton Architectural Press has recently published the Animal Box of animal-themed postcard art from celebrated artists.
Keep Fresh Stay Rad, also from Princeton Architectural, is a collection of typography-themed cards (many hand-drawn) from Friends of Type, a loose-knit collective of New York and San Francisco artists and designers. I reviewed the group's wonderful Let's Go Letter Hunting notebook on Wink Books. These postcards make a perfect companion to that book. You could have a lot of fun re-drawing the letterforms from the Keep Fresh postcards in your Letter Hunting journal.
Everything about this product is lovely, from the colorful and vibrant thick-board storage box, to the theme tabs that organize the cards (with plenty of room for your own cards), to the sweet little typography “zine” inside. And, of course, the 100 funky and fun postcards themselves. The cards in the box are divided into themes, including Salutations, Encouragement, Affection, Strong Language – there are ten themes in all.
One criticism I have of the set is that the card stock is rather thin, not traditional postcard thickness. Also, it's great that the box is roomy enough to store additional cards, but because the Keep Fresh cards are on thin stock, they are already slightly bowed, even with the cardboard spacer that comes in the box. These are minor criticisms, though, given the overall goodness that can be had here for under $18. I'm looking forward to doing some mail art using these cards as a background.
Keep Fresh Stay Rad Postcard Box
by Friends of Type
Princeton Architectural Press, 100 cards
