A Non-Profit Snail Mail

The last two months of creating for my snail mail club, Atomik Light, have been nothing but nurturing and empowering. This August, I’m excited to present a fun-filled package based on the theme of pond ecosystem x resilience.

It’s been 2 months since I started the project. During this time, my personal values and opinions surrounding our relationship with technology have shifted and evolved. From there, my vision and purpose for Atomik Light have also changed.

In short, I’m preparing to turn the project into a non-profit initiative contributing to fine arts and arts education in North America.

The contents of the package will remain largely the same — I will continue to paint and print original postcards. The shift is essentially the act of donating profit.

Atomik Light started off as a project geared towards individuals who want to establish an analog living habit — temporarily disconnecting from technology and reflecting on its overwhelming presence in our lives. Furthermore, I personally needed a creative outlet outside of digital product design. For the first issue of AL (July 2026), I actively experimented with short-form content creation to try to capture attention for the project; by the end of July, Atomik Light had 15+ subscribers. I was amazed that this many people (many of whom were strangers from the internet) took interest, and that many of my friends came to support the endeavor.

But soon enough, I found myself pondering ways to differentiate Atomik Light from the assortment of elaborate snail mail clubs out there; how to use hooks in reels to capture the attention of viewers, and how to sell a romanticized perspective that people were willing to buy. It became clear to me that my focus had shifted towards how to sell the product.

It’s the norm. Many snail mail club creators have built legitimate, high-grossing businesses with beautiful artworks. All the power to them. But with my day job already requiring me to think about how to optimize design for profit, I wanted Atomik Light to depart from that path. I want to continue painting and designing, even as an attempt to balance professional life and playful, artistic experimentation.

As for my marketing approach, I will be speaking face-to-face with those I meet to bring awareness to the project, and relying mostly on word of mouth. The best way to talk to people and channel empathy is still in-person, and I don’t want to forget that.

I think persistence without immediate personal gain will be challenging, but I also think it's worth it to uphold something I want to believe in. I think it’ll do good to look outside my bubble and understand that there is something everyone can do to make it slightly better without upending our own lives. None of this will change the fact that at the end of the day, I am still toiling away at building a career by “optimizing” and “maximizing” value. And even if the social fabric of our world is resistant to change, personal choices still matter.