While serving as a U.S. soldier during WWII, Ed sent a series of letters home to his sweetheart, Mary Jane. Decades later, their daughter Mary rediscovered these letters and gathered them into a book, both to honour her parents’ memory and to offer an intimate glimpse into their love story and life during the war.
Project
Book Design
This 218-page book presents a curated collection of scans from the original letters. The design embraces a minimalist, restrained aesthetic to allow the letters to take centre stage. Subtle graphic elements drawn directly from the correspondence, are woven throughout, including the red cross from the hospital stationery Ed used and the air-mail waves and circular stamp motifs.
A classic serif typographic system reinforces the historical significance of the material, giving the book a timeless and elegant character. The cover features a layered collage of letters, photographs, stamps, and silk portraits of Ed and Mary Jane, which Ed commissioned while stationed in Japan.
