Two decades ago, when I was entering the Army and writing letters to new pen pals, I started to seek out interesting stationery. Being the end of the '80s, even Barnes & Noble could carry something attractive and fun.These are sheets from two pads I bought nearly 20 years ago, then lost, then found again in the last few years. They were put out by a company called Paper Moon (not Paper Moon in Ohio or Paper Moon in Rhode Island), or more accurately Paper Moon Graphics (not PMG in OK, nor PMG in NC; it was probably, indicated by this site, PMG in Culver City, CA, though my pad says Los Angeles). Now, however, I can't find any trace of the original company, just a dozen independent firms all calling themselves by the same name. How discouraging.
And I see by the cardboard backs of these pads (which I retained) that one of these pads of paper was designed for Paper Moon Graphics by Robert Fitch, and it was printed in 1993. That would probably be the darker pad with the large sun in the corner. These pads were handy because they were nice enough to look at, intriguing designs and vignetting, yet there wasn't too much room to write a lot in. You could jot a quick note or a couple pages to someone and be done with it. Or maybe I assume too much and the people I wrote to felt a little ripped off by tiny notes written on busy paper. Huh.
5 comments:
Yes, I've been trying to locate Paper Moon, Los Angeles, the outfit that flourished in the 80s -- I loved their design sensibility, a sort of 30s and 40s cartoon style, really distinctive. They made cards that were sold mostly in a huge stationary and novelty shop on Sunset Boulevard. One day I dropped in and suddenly the Paper Moon cards were just awful, sort of trashy. I asked about it and the clerks told me Paper Moon had sold their name to another company. They just disappeared. Once in a great while a card or two comes up on E-bay, usually a holiday card, which doesn't interest me. If anybody has any of the original Paper Moon cards, let me know.
Thank you for helping to fill in some of the gaps in my understanding. How disappointing, to have a favorite store/brand that folds suddenly. Good luck in your quest.
I'm so glad others are interested in this... I collected Paper Moon cards when I was a teenager (early 80s); sadly my family's house burned down in the Laguna Beach fires of '93, taking my cards with it. I loved the platform-shoe-chrome-palm-tree kind of motifs they used. And I signed up on a website (papermoon.com) that is supposedly the "future site" for this memorabilia, but the site has never developed any further since I discovered it a few years ago. There must be SOMEONE with a collection who wants to display it!
I'm with you there. Paper Moon (at that incarnation) reflected or maybe defined my abstract grasp of the '80s spirit. I forgot about them for a long time but when they came to mind again, I hoped they'd succeeded throughout the eras and would still be producing amazing stuff. This turned out not to be the case but, as I've discovered, they still have plenty of fans. Thanks for speaking up.
Hello again -- FYI, there's a woman named Jane Engle who shares a great Pinterest board of Paper Moon Graphics here:
http://www.pinterest.com/janer1/paper-moon-graphics/
There are a few others on Pinterest, as well.
Cheers! Rufino Cabang
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