- Japan’s population is aging faster than any other country in the world, and the number of elderly people living alone is increasing at a rapid rate. With the pandemic added to this situation, there’s even more of a barrier for elderly people to see their children and their families, which has led to a sense of loneliness and isolation pervading the entire country.

- Meanwhile, for Japan Post, advances in digitalization has caused its main line of business, postal mail, to stagnate, due to decreased letter-writing among the younger generation.

- The goal of the project was to achieve two things simultaneously: one, to get the younger generation to appreciate the goodness of letter-writing, and, two, to help the elderly generation connect with their families.

The digital data entered by the grandchildren’s generation is converted and delivered in the form of a postcard, a style of communication which the grandparents’ generation are most comfortable and familiar with. The postcard is designed to automatically prompt a reply by arriving attached with a reply card with all of the required information (sender and receiver’s address, name, etc.) already printed. For the grandchildren’s generation, who today have less and less occasion to receive handwritten mails, this provides them with an opportunity to experience a fresh and heartfelt way of communication. We believe his entire design to be a creative idea.

For the grandchildren, we provided a platform that allowed them to do everything from their smartphones: upload the photo, enter the text, and complete payment. Japan Post then took over, handling the printing and mailing of the postcard. The grandparents received the postcard attached with a reply card that already had their grandchildren’s address and other necessary information printed on them. This enabled them to handwrite their replies the familiar way, which in turn helped the grandchildren see the value of receiving a heartfelt, handwritten letter.

Magosha Letter was launched on "Respect for the Aged Day", which is a national holiday in Japan. For the grandchildren, the experience of receiving the actual handwritten letters back from their grandparents encouraged them to communicate more on often with their grandparents over phone calls etc., even if they cannot visit them. For the grandparents, a survey conducted with doctors revealed that reading their grandchildren’s postcard, handwriting a reply, and walking to the mailbox to send it off helped with preventing senile dementia.

This project was implemented as a pilot program to test whether such style of communication between the two generations was actually viable and whether it can be expanded. The pilot program resulted in positive feedbacks from users which has helped move the project toward full-fledged implementation.