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From Eva's mom, Carmi:
First, I want to tell you that Eva (almost 4 now) loves getting mail and she LOVES her growing collection of magazines. I told her I would write to you with a request: she's noticed that her name on the address label doesn't end in an 'a'. Well, it does end in an 'a', but not one she recognizes. Is there any way you could use a different font for the addresses so that the lower case 'a' is the style that young kids recognize? I suppose this will be an even bigger issue for her little brother, Isaac!
By the way, we love the magazine -- you've done a great job with it. We tell everyone about it.
Thanks for writing! Your story confirms something we've felt to be true since we began publishing in 2002 - very young children really care about what their name looks like. It's the main reason that we brought all of our data management in-house and online. We found that data entry people in big fulfillment houses are not careful enough. Plus, we go the extra step to have the addresses printed in larger than typical letters so that it's easier for a young child to recognize their own name.
Two years ago we arranged to have a new "a" created for the typeface we use inside the magazine for exactly the reason you've outlined. We had not looked into the specifics of the font for our address labels but with Eva's concern as our motivation, we spoke with our vendor who prints the labels. They did a little research and found a font that uses the "one-story a" that Eva will recognize and the font change will be made on our next issue.
Please be sure and tell Eva "thank you" for bringing this to our attention -- you have helped us solve a problem that likely is noticed by lots of kids!
We checked back with Carmi after a couple of issues with the new address font were mailed:
Yes, Eva noticed the change immediately. In fact, that was the first thing she said, "Look mom, they spelled my name right!" Thank you so much for making the effort to make that change. It was clearly very important to Eva.
I snapped a photo of Eva the last time Tessy & Tab arrived. It's a little fuzzy but this is pretty much her expression EVERY time a Tessy & Tab arrives.
