There is a lot of information that comes with postal regulations. Last week, Alissa Rader and Andrea Jarvie taught us seniors what we as designers really need to know from all of it.

The image above is a diagram of a business reply card. It shows the six design requirements for designing Business Reply mail (BRM). These include:

• NO STAMP REQUIRED: This means the postage has been paid for by the business that sent the card so it doesn’t require a stamp to mail back.
• HORIZONTAL BARS: These bars must be 1/16” to 3/16” thick and evenly spaced. The bars must be at least 1” long and 1” wide.
• FIM: FIM (Facing Identification Marks) can be used in two ways. One kind of these marks are used for Penalty mail which is mail sent by U.S. government agencies. The second kind of FIM is used for Franked mail and indicates that the postage for the mail has been paid. These bars come from the US Postal Service website.
• BUSINESS REPLY MARK: The words “BUSINESS REPLY MAIL” must always be shown in all caps and appear above the address. Included in this area below is the permit number, issuing post office, and the addressee of whoever is paying the postage.
• DELIVERY ADDRESS: This is the address that the card will be mailed to when it is sent out.
• BAR CODE: This represents the ZIP code information to allow for fast scanning. Each 5 lines represents a different number. These bars also come from the US Postal Office.

We also learned about design standards for mailing with envelopes.

The diagram above is from International Paper’s Knowledge Center. It shows all of the measurements that need to be remembered when designing or an envelope.

When designing for envelopes, it’s important to remember that it must be at least 5x3.5 inches and .007 inches thick. The maximum area for an envelope is 11.5x6 and it can’t be more than .125 inches thick.

Things to remember:

The envelope can’t have anything with bumps or that isn’t able to bend. Clasps, strings, staples, and buttons don’t send well either.

Make sure to check the envelope size to make sure everything will fit well.

If there is any question of whether it will send or not, test for the optical carrier reader at the local post office.

Changing the paper weight for any element of the piece may alter the size or weight.

Most importantly: DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING!