What is Pigeon?

John Morse-Brown came up with the idea of Pigeon after he fell out of love with social media.

He came to realise that most, if not all, of his online interactions were pretty negative. Either he was compulsively checking his posts for ‘likes’, or he was getting annoyed by people showing off and oversharing. (They probably felt the same about him). And somehow, no matter how many likes his Facebook posts received, it never felt enough. He always wanted more.

Of course, John loves his friends. But all that frantic activity was not fostering a genuine sense of connection - quite the opposite. It left him feeling hollow and empty. So he took the plunge and closed his social media accounts.

But then a good friend of his moved to the United States. And that meant he'd have to find a new way of keeping in touch. No more hanging out at his place or trips to the pub!

He wondered about letters, and even gave his friend a pack of Basildon Bond letter-writing paper and a monogrammed pen, but it didn't go down very well...

And that got John thinking. As a graphic designer with a mechanical engineering degree, who happens to love origami, this looked like a fun problem to solve... What was needed, he decided, was a way of making letter writing fun, new, beautiful, and easy.

And Pigeon is the result!

The envelope is integral to the letter, and the space to write in is not too daunting. He sometimes describes it as 'like Twitter (X), but with a pen'. Once you get a correspondence going, you’ll always have your friend’s address to hand inside their latest letter. They're also the perfect size to hold a Polaroid photo, so you can slip in a selfie. And the designs mean each Pigeon is a small object of beauty.

If you don’t normally write letters, you’re in for an unexpected treat – the completely irrational joy of not receiving an instant reply to your message… It sounds perverse in our day and age, that having to wait can feel good. But it really does. There’s a real pleasure in knowing that, in the next day or two, a friend will receive a completely personal note from you - just from you, and that you might get a hand-written reply sometime after that. Delayed gratification is good for the soul!

Sending one letter to one friend and waiting for one reply is entirely satisfying. It’s personal and unique; narrowcasting, not broadcasting.

Romantic as it sounds, with a letter you end up with a little part of your friend, to keep, forever. A letter holds its value, and that helps sustain true friendship. Nothing digital can compare.

John Morse-Brown
May 2021