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A popular packaging component is the envelope, which is often constructed of thin, flat material. It is intended to hold a flat object, such a card or letter.

Paper sheets are often cut into one of three shapes”a rhombus, a short-arm cross, or a kite”to create traditional envelopes. With these forms, the sheet sides may be folded around a central rectangular space to create the envelope construction. In this way, the arrangement of four flaps on the back side creates an enclosure with a rectangle-shaped face.

A pocket is a folding pattern used in commercial envelope manufacturing where the final flap closed is on the short side. Pockets are widely used in the packing of tiny amounts of seeds. The flaps are often glued or gummed together at the overlaps, even though in theory they might be held in place by sealing the uppermost flap at a single spot (for instance, with a wax seal). They are most frequently used to transmit mail (letters) through a postal system with pre-paid postage.

Window envelopes feature a hole drilled in the front so the paper inside can be seen. The region was sufficiently transparent after treatment for the address to be readable. There isn’t a global standard for window envelopes as of 2009, however some nations do have national requirements, such Germany and the UK.

A letter sheet and an aerogram are similar in that they both include writing on the inside to reduce weight. Any handmade envelope is essentially a letter sheet since it allows you to write on the portion of the sheet that will become the interior of the envelope’s face before it is folded. The letter sheet can be wax-sealed for document security. A locked letter, which is created by cutting and folding the sheet in an inventive manner to prevent the letter from being opened without obviously damaging the letter or envelope, is another safe kind of letter sheet.

An envelope for sending cash condolences used in Japan. The black and white cords stand for death. For weddings, similar-looking envelopes with red and silver strings are utilized.
Mulready lettersheets, which are lozenge-shaped, were used to introduce the Penny Post component of Sir Rowland Hill’s British postal reforms in 1840 and the postage stamp. If another letter is included, the postage will stay at one penny, as long as the overall weight does not exceed half an ounce (14 grams). This was left over from the old method of computing postage, which took into account the quantity of paper used.

Due to cost constraints, members of the Confederate States Army occasionally utilized wallpaper-covered envelopes during the American Civil War.

A “return envelope” is a smaller, pre-addressed envelope that is included inside a bigger one. It can be used for freepost, metered reply mail, or courteous reply mail (business reply mail). Some envelopes are made to double as the return envelope, reducing the cost of adding a return envelope to the package’s contents. Return envelopes are widely used in the direct mail sector as a response method.

Before 1840, every envelope was handcrafted and was cut from a separate rectangular sheet into the proper shape. The technique of tessellating (tiling) a number of envelope patterns across and down a big sheet was developed in that year by George Wilson in the United Kingdom. This method decreased the overall amount of waste created per envelope when they were cut out. A steam-powered machine that not only cut out the envelope forms but also wrinkled and folded them was patented in 1845 by Edwin Hill and Warren de la Rue. (Mechanized gum had not yet been developed.) The usage of machine-made envelopes became more common due to their convenience, and the companies that had previously produced handcrafted envelopes saw a steady decline in economic importance.

Given that they are composed of paper, envelopes naturally lend themselves to decoration with additional designs and text in addition to the required postal marks. The direct mail sector has long benefited from this trait, as has the Mail Art movement more recently. Additionally, personalized printed envelopes are a growingly popular small business marketing strategy.

Most of the over 400 billion envelopes of all sizes made worldwide are machine-made.

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