I shared this photograph on instagram earlier this week and thought it appropriate here too. I have lots of collections and I’ve mentioned several on the blog over the last few years. Some are from certain times in my life, this being one of those.

During the 1990s I was fascinated by the post and all things related. In student holidays I worked in the Royal Mail sorting offices in Leeds & Norwich, sorting and delivering mail, day & night and was even offered a permanent job – but I went back to graduate in design! I still have my uniform belt & badge, I wore number LS394.

Much of this time I was a student and I was attracted to the graphic qualities of the imagery related to the system of handling post too. I loved the labels and sacks and used some of this language in my final major project on my degree course in Printed Textile Design. I also discovered the GPO Len Lye films etc and couldn’t believe money was spent on such avant garde films to encourage people to post early for Christmas. I love the fact I held in my hands people’s exam results, postcards and letters to Father Christmas and helped distribute them across the world. I liked working the nights with huge machinery that I fed with post as it sort. It was a great feeling to be part of the huge system. For my training I and a dozen others were trained to sort post without error and had to sit an exam to prove it, in order to work the shifts – I still remember too many postcodes, and my geography of Britain improved! My interest in everyday design around me was fuelled … and I’m pleased one of my design heroes David Mellor designed a box. I’d love to design a Royal Mail stamp!

I also loved spotting the different post box designs up and down the country and before  knew it I had rather a few! These photographs include locations across Britain, France, Spain, Israel, Denmark, taken by me and loyal / tolerant friends. Some photographs are very poor quality but the prints on Kodak paper are something of my past. I used to wallpaper my student room with new additions as I got them back from the developers. Thanks to all those people who helped – I’m not sure what to do with them now but let me know if you recognise any of the locations! I have more than this image shows but it gives you an idea of the collection. I’m not sure I’ll start collecting these again but it was a nice trip down memory lane to discover them again.