How to create a custom Google Map Envelope

Today I’m taking a small deviation from the usual house and garden posts to share a cool little thing I found on the internet yesterday.  I saw this on Crazy Gadgets, Incrediblethings.com, and then on SwissMiss.com (three great blogs if you’ve never seen them) who found them on Engaget. They are custom google map envelopes designed by Raghul Mahtani & Yofred Moik, two designers from the Industrial design program At Syracuse University. They combine a google map with text bubbles containing the destination and return addresses, and the route the letter takes to get from one place to another.

1. Open Contacts and select the person you want to send the letter to


Get Directions in google

2. Highlight the address and control click Show Map…
3. A Google Map will open in Safari with the destination centered
4. Click the Get directions link, and enter your address (the return address), then click get directions.
5. The route will be shown in the browser window.
6. Do a screen grab (command-3) so you have a copy of the map.
7. Open a new Pages Envelope and from the Template Chooser select envelope
8. 

   edit map in pages

   Drag the screen grab of the map onto the envelope, and use the handles to resize the map to fit on the envelope.

9. Create the address “stickers”. I used the rounded rectangle shape, but you can also use a text bubble. Resize and color to your liking. Once you make the first one, command-d to duplicate the sticker and move one to the top left, and the other to the center of the envelope. These will be your to and from fields.
   

   address bubbles

10. Type in the addresses, and style the text. Google uses the Arial Font for their maps.
11. Click print.

Some bloggers who wrote about the google envelope project noticed that this only work with addresses that are east of the destination, because the destination address needs to be in the top left corner of the envelope and the primary address needs to be centered. Some guy tried to send a note to his friend, but didn’t follow the rules, and his letter was returned to sender. There is a super easy work around. Google maps lets you re-arrange the driving route, if you want. simply click on the route line, and change the route so the directions pass through the upper left quadrant, then zoom in on the map when you add it to the envelope so the route appears like it is coming from the top left.