Peter Lewis
Special to Westside Today
With Awards Season in full swing, the countdown is on to the biggest prize of all and two of the most anticipated and famous phrases ever uttered are in the lead up are: “The envelope, please,” followed by “And the Oscar goes to…”
Marc Friedland, a couturier of “luxury social communication,” has for the last three years been the exclusive supplier of the first object of that pairing: “The Envelope.” Now celebrating his 30th year in the business of creating handcrafted greeting cards, Friedland calls the Oscar envelope assignment “a dream come true.”
Working out of his high-ceilinged, 7,000 square-foot space on Venice Boulevard, Friedland adds to his permanent staff of 14 each year to create an assembly line of sorts for the special occasion of preparing the Oscar envelopes.
Westside Today was invited for a visit, including the working area out back, where a mini-museum commemorating The Envelope is proudly on display, including, within a glass case, a re-creation of the famous Ballot Briefcase, with a handcuff on the handle, which carries the winners’ envelopes inside.
Respecting the iconic history of the Oscars, Friedland’s Oscar envelope, a brilliant gold with an inner scarlet red lining featuring a pattern of small Oscars, does not change year to year. “We really designed this with the idea that the envelope is really iconic – there is a tradition to it, the same way they don’t change the statue,” Friedland explained. “The Oscar is the Oscar.”
As a “communications artist,” Friedland’s method is to go beyond simply creating a card or envelope, but to commemorate “moments and milestones” or “memorable moments.”
“The truth is – how do we elevate the event into these really amazing experiences? And I don’t want to say, but it’s evolving like theme parties into the whole next level. These become like art, not only art pieces, but the events are like living art,” he said.
Tom Hanks, the very first actor to open The Envelope made by Friedland, made the unscripted comment: “Look at these envelopes, aren’t they a piece of art!”
Friedland’s business has grown in popularity since he was asked to design the world’s most famous envelope, with over a million invites having gone out. His designs have ranged from flashy hot pink cards for Katy Perry’s Las Vegas New Year’s Eve party, to the elegant, restrained tones of a card for the Ground Zero Museum in New York, showing a single yellow rose.
For Friedland, it all began with a childhood fascination.
“I used to send away for things in the back of magazines to get free things in the mail,” Friedland explained. “I always loved coming home after school and seeing stuff in the mailbox.”
As a precocious 12 year old, he took a discomfort bag from a plane ride to Miami, put a stamp on it, and dropped it in a mailbox, writing on the front: “Warning Postmaster: this bag has already been used.”
“In those days you could actually put a mailing label on a coconut and mail it from Hawaii to the States,” Friedland recalled. “They basically had to put anything you would mail through the mail.”
Looking to fill in one more elective during studies for his graduate degree in Public Health, Friedland decided to take a mixed media course for fun, at the Brentwood Art Center on Montana Avenue. Before he knew it, he was selling hand made greeting cards to local businesses. Friedland still remembers his first client – the Rose Café.
“When I see cards that I did from 30 years ago, and I see 1986 on it, it’s like – well, first of all ‘where did the time go?’ – but to see that thread through my career – 30 years…it’s just kind of crazy,” he said.
“I don’t know if you can start a business like that again today,” Friedland added.
Friedland’s partner and production engineer Arturo Valdez, makes Friedland’s visions a reality.
“He figures out how to do it,” Friedland said. “He’s kind of like the MacGyver.” The pair have been creating together for as long as Friedland can remember.
The team’s projects have also increased in variety and scope since his humble beginnings, with Friedland now a strong advocate of education. He showed a scrapbook created by two different schools, one from the inner city, and one from the suburbs, who collaborated to be pen pals and eventually write letters to the President. Some of those kids did not know how to write, and their letters had to be transcribed.
“I think what is really important, especially for parents and folks raising kids, is the art of hand written communication . . . the idea of a Thank You note, you know, it’s not about sending a text or tweet or something like that, or an email, it’s really about doing something physical,” he said.
“I think of what’s going on in the world – there’s so much darkness,” he reflected, “even more reason for people to make these moments in their families’ lives special. The only antidote to what’s going on is these happy, joyful moments. There’s a lot of heart and soul that goes into it. It’s not just ink on paper.”
