Two For Joy’s Louise turns passion into new designs including cypher details
Spotting post boxes has gone from a nerdy passion to part of her business for Two For Joy publisher and illustrator Louise Richardson, as she’s now incorporating them into her designs.
After going viral back in the summer with her social media rant about the “shoddy craftsmanship” of the first Charles III post box to be unveiled, Louise realised she should put her passion to good use, admitting to a birthday treat visit to London’s Postal Museum to check out old designs.
“Incorporating my love for post boxes, I’m illustrating some of my favourites and, when they feature on a card, where some will be more subtle than others, the back of the card will feature a little fact file about that style of post box.
“At the moment it’s just on spring seasons but I’m working on everyday and birthday collections right now.
“With over 115,000 post boxes across Britain, each one quietly holds a piece of our history. Once you start learning about them, spotting post boxes can become a delightful discovery! Through my illustrations and fun facts, I hope to encourage others to pause, notice, and appreciate these familiar icons we often pass by.”
Explaining that they’re traditionally made in cast iron with the royal cypher and Royal Mail working as an integral part of the design, Louise is incorporating a handy guide to sating post boxes.
In her reel, which can be seen below, about the UK’s first King Charles III design which was unveiled in Cambourne in July, she said the new one has been made from sheet metal with “a strange cypher box stuck on” and the “awfully messy welded Royal Mail plaque stuck on” that’s not in the company font, looking like a “stock stencil cut out”.
Louise added: “I would have assumed that the very first new monarch’s boxes would be the absolute best example of craftsmanship but instead they’ve rushed this thing out. Sorry for the rage but I’m quite passionate about post boxes. I love them and I’m horrified at this – is it just me!”
Having clocked up 34,000 likes and 4.3million views on Insta and TikTok, plenty of people agreed, and it’s given Louise the confidence to talk about them without people thinking I’m a total geek”!
Describing herself as a post box enthusiast, Louise loves spotting them around the country and working out how old they are by the royal cyphers, and she’s built up a reputation, with her Instagram page often tagged when customers and publishers find old boxes both in the UK and across the world and she has an Instagram highlight that can be seen here.
Louise added: “It fascinates me that some of these boxes have been stood there for 100 years, and I like to imagine what life in the community was like when that post box was first being used.”
And she’s already passing this passion on to her family: “My son Arlo even loves helping post my orders and loves post box spotting!”
