Overlooked graphic design: European stamps

5 Jun 2006 Category: Features, Graphics, Illustration, Worldwide

On my way home, I happened to pass a “Stamp Fair” which sold all sorts of pretty stamps from all over the world for ridiculous amounts of money (especially considering, that you really don’t need Finnish stamps in Japan). To my big surprise, I got totally sucked into this bought more than anybody else!

written by Uleshka

Why did I? What is so special about stamps!? And why was I never interested in them before!? I really don’t know…

I am certainly no stamp collector! And I only vaguely remember the dark days when my dad approached me with countless sheets of stamps I had to tear into single stamps and assort them into a little box. That was the way to avoid having to go to the post office all the time.

Due to services like digital stamp printing from your home computer - those days of asking poor children to tear stacks of stamps are finally over. What a relief!

This however also shows that now that I FINALLY RECOGNIZED THE BEAUTY IN STAMPS - it seems like we really don’t need them anymore…

(Or when did you last needed a stamp to write a note to your boyfriend living in a different city?)

A little sad in a way, isn’t it?! Imagine all the history of careful design concentrated in this tiny space, different printing techniques, perforation, different tastes of glue (strawberry flavor stamp glue in America!), thinking about where to place your stamp on a love letter, stamping the stamps and again steaming off the stamp to place it into a little album….all this simply fades into nothingness - in fact it pretty much already has.

No doubt, stamps are a thing of the past!

However, there are still special stamp editions coming out of every country each year and it seems like true stamp fans never give up! The Japanese stamp collectors association is pretty passionate about their stamps and invents new ways of using them: for decoration in a picture frame or alternatively as a “sticker” on a bouquet.

After all - those alternative ways to highlight the beauty of stamps almost feel more appropriate regarding the effort and skill which too often lies hidden in some delicate stamp designs (… regarding how many people like me may be out there ignoring stamps on letters all their lives!).

I won’t even try to go deep into stamp design here - that would take forever and there are some true experts who can do that much better. But I want is to emphasize that this is one more precious medium we tend to neglect although it has a lot to offer to a careful eye!

Here are my favorite main groups of European stamp design I found at the Agcy Stamp Fair:

1. Famous characters

To ensure that eveyone really wants a stamp from your country: put a famous character on it. Especially if it’s cute! Here we have Miffy for Holland, The Little Prince for France, Moomin for Finland and Little Mole for the Czech Republic.

2. Eastern European stamp designs

Now here I seem to have tapped into a whole world of interesting stamps. Those Eastern European designs were actually what I liked best at the stamp fair. Look at these amazing esthetics! Don’t they look strong and mighty and as if they were simply taking over the world in a few seconds? Well, maybe I exaggerate a bit here…

I am a big fan of this kind of humor, too! Excellent surprise!

The following stamps earn my respect for the fact that they “wasted” an entire “free stamp” - which might as well have some price printed on - with an innocent peacock feather. One could probably write a whole article about those “wasted parts” in stamp design! Does anybody collect those??

And last but not least some topics which concern us all: health service, how to behave in dense traffic and saving energy.

3. Stamps for kids

I suppose being a stamp designer is most fun when designing kids’ stamps. There seems to be plenty of variety here!

4. Lifestyle / Design

Here is where I allow myself a sneaky comparison: old and stylish Romanian design stamps from the 50ies versus a Swedish design stamp set from 2005. Who wins?

5. super-special stamps

To my very big surprise I found some stamps which really don’t look like stamps: a wooden Swiss design and a woven Austrian Edelweiss stamp. The women of the fair assured me, that these are ready to use though! Just peel off the double-sided tape on the back of the stamp and pin it onto your next very, very, very precious love letter!

I hope you enjoyed the little inspiration. Now go and visit your grandmother! She will probably be very happy to see you again, even though your hidden purpose might be to steal those stamp-albums from her…

PingMag message of the day: Have a look at stamps! You will be surprised!

29 Comments

1. I had a prettu big stamp collection when i was younger and reading about stamps here made me miss it a lot. They are so beautiful.

   Good piece of reading. =]

   Posted by: FTRC on June 5th, 2006 at 10:43 pm

2. Fascinating. I imagine the Swiss wood stamps and Austrian textiles are fairly recent ones…is that right? I am overcome by an intense urge to revert all correspondence to wood sheets in wood envelopes stamped with Swiss wood stamps.

   Posted by: Guig on June 5th, 2006 at 10:43 pm

3. I’ve had the same reaction to stamps — I admire early Soviet design. The posters and ephemera have been scooped up by collectors. Stamps are the most accessible source of fantastic design. The variety is endless and the anonymity of the artists is pleasing in this age of superstar designers.

   Posted by: Erik on June 5th, 2006 at 10:56 pm

4. Wow. I have never seen so many great stamps before. As a kid i started collecting stamps, but that phase lasted about 1 month.

   Posted by: Tahir on June 6th, 2006 at 4:38 am

5. Again a great article!

   Maybe you noticed that many of the Dutch stamps say 20c+10, these are so called ‘kinderpostzegels’ or children-stamps. This means people pay 30 cents of which 20 cents is the value of the stamp and 10 cents is going to charity. Since 1924 a new series is made every year and children go from door to door to sell them. So did I in 1985 when I was eleven, and this article took me back in time :-)

   The ‘kinderpostzegels’ website is in Dutch only but it does show all designs since 1924. Click on the stamp at the bottom and select a year to see the design.
   http://www.kinderpostzegels.nl/overkinderpostzegels/1032geschiedenis.asp

   Posted by: Rutger on June 6th, 2006 at 5:42 am

6. [...] A survey of classic stamp design from PingMag Link [...]

   Posted by: Gillico » Design Blog Archive » Postage Stamps on June 6th, 2006 at 5:46 am

7. Just noticed the site is not just in Dutch, here’s the English version: http://www.kinderpostzegels.nl/en/

   Posted by: Rutger on June 6th, 2006 at 5:46 am

8. [...] I’m certainly no fan of stamps. In fact I hate them. I remember seeing those emails about people who licked stamps and had eggs stuck in their tounges (which were obvously not true stories but still…). At the same time though I hate change and PingMag’s article on stamps reminded me of that somehow. [...]

   Posted by: Furious Angel » Blog » Stamps And Hunting Wolverines on June 6th, 2006 at 8:25 am

9. I love the wooden and woven stamps! Wouldn’t mind receiving a letter with one of them attached.

   Posted by: Edouard on June 6th, 2006 at 9:48 am

10. I’m cooking up ‘Coasters/Beer Mats of the World’.

    Posted by: Andy H on June 6th, 2006 at 1:29 pm

11. That was very, very cool. My stamp collection when I was a kid never looked that cool. I wonder if I should take it up again?

    Posted by: Chidade on June 6th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

12. Philatelic is a very good way to understand about different countries and their cultures. Gradually its loosing charm as more of digital life started sticking to our daily life.

    Posted by: Paavani on June 6th, 2006 at 3:10 pm

13. sweet

    Posted by: ankit sharma on June 6th, 2006 at 6:46 pm

14. This is another great articles from you guys. What I missed are Polish stams, many beautifully designed. For your viewing pleasure I found the stamp catalogue of the 90’s and the newest issues.

    Posted by: Chris on June 6th, 2006 at 7:37 pm

15. Love the Dutch and Hungarian stamps for kids, v. inspiring.

    Posted by: Simon from Doodleblog on June 6th, 2006 at 8:10 pm

16. My brother and I were used to collect stamps in the childhood. These magical words “Magyar Posta”, “DDR” reminds me these times :) I still have collection of stamps from different countries including Cuba, DPR Korea, Mongolia, Lesotho, Guinee, Republique de Cote D’Ivoire, Vietnam, Argentina, Chinese, Spain, Tanzania and so on.

    The last two stamps are very original!

    Posted by: Mindaugas on June 7th, 2006 at 6:13 am

17. A great philatelic page, written by somebody who isn’t a stamp collector!

    Just to notice that the Romanian set “4th Sample Fair, Bucharest” was issued on Oct. 12, 1962, Scott 1517-1525, Michel 2105 - 2113.

    Posted by: Victor Manta on June 8th, 2006 at 3:25 am

18. ha ha I loved magyar posta stamps too, mindaugas

    Posted by: Claytonain on June 10th, 2006 at 4:19 am

19. Love it.

    Posted by: Luke on June 10th, 2006 at 8:47 pm

20. Try them out – you can´t lick ém

    Posted by: Keith Bassford on June 19th, 2006 at 5:05 pm

21. When I was a child, I had an album full of stamps. In a fit of being a teenager, I ripped them all out and used some of them to cover a notebook I had and other to cover a box.

    Reading this now, I instantly regret doing this.

    Posted by: Adrian on July 13th, 2006 at 1:59 am

22. So Cool… I love it..

    Posted by: wata on July 20th, 2006 at 3:13 am

23. Nice selection. I have been searching de net for pop stamp designs for this website http://www.mondomochales.com/ and I choosed some of the ones you talk about in this post (Check out the random stamp at the top right).

    The better stamps are on japanese blogs.

    Posted by: karramarro on September 8th, 2006 at 11:13 pm

24. Uleshka > “..ridiculous amounts of money..” > Is this expensive or cheap? I like collecting stamps until email era came over =_= My uncle works for central post office in a city, in back days he always sends me the latest edition of stamp series. How happy. =D Thanks for sharing the pictures!

    Posted by: mcgr on September 10th, 2006 at 7:27 pm

25. Hello mcgr! Well, “..ridiculous amounts of money..” is relative, I suppose. If you are a serious collector, then there might even have been a couple of cheap offers for you (although I doubt it) - but watching what kind of people bought stamps, it seemed to me that they were of the kinds where you keep the stamp just like any other sticker and considering that I paid 3000yen for some stamps - I think that can be considered expensive!

    Posted by: Uleshka on September 11th, 2006 at 1:23 pm

26. I love it.I have my own colection too,now under construction

    Posted by: kerry on January 20th, 2007 at 2:56 am

27. Hey,
    All the pretty stamps are so fascinating.nice work!

    Posted by: Mishal on July 16th, 2007 at 10:15 am

28. One-hit wonder

    Posted by: SAMPSON on November 21st, 2007 at 2:35 am

29. thanks for your subject. it is very important

    Posted by: nakliyat on February 29th, 2008 at 5:04 am

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