Designer Christmas Card

This year I got what I actually wanted for Christmas. And it came early. It was a Thomas Heatherwick Christmas card. Hardly your typical affair, there are no robins, ice skaters, Christmas trees or snow scenes. Instead the central feature is a postage stamp. In fact the envelope it came in was as impressive as the card itself. It was handmade, backed with cardboard to keep the confection inside stiff—but with a whole cut in so the stamp could be cancelled. Heatherwick’s worked for years with someone at London’s central sorting station (it’s just down the street from his studio) designing them.

One year’s intricately engineered card came in a box no bigger than two square inches. Inside were four postage stamps with a ring at the back. You pulled it, and the stamps peeled open like a flower to reveal a customized greeting. Another year was a 3d Christmas bauble—of stamps–and shaped like a tetrahedron. And hand cancelled. Then this year’s with its lovely sprawling tendrils that seem to sum up all of Heatherwick’s ingenuity and whimsy.

Jennifer Kabat
Posted on Thursday, 21st of December 2006 Permalink Comment (0)