Though Christmas stamps come but once a year, the exacting scale and array of precedents requires both courage and discipline from whichever studio wins the annual commission, as True North discovered.
Designing stamps is notoriously difficult. They take months and months of creating, crafting, recreating and recrafting; every inch is pored over in the most exacting fashion. You work on such a tiny canvas (should have said every half inch, sorry), that it’s a real discipline to determine what is important to keep in and what to leave out. You ‘compete’ against an illustrious list of other creatives, responsible for producing some of the most iconic stamp issues of recent years. And the queen has to personally approve your designs.
To top that off, Christmas stamps are seen every year, so naturally your work is compared to what’s been seen before (think creating the agency Christmas card). But that’s what makes these miniature works of art such fascinating things to work on. Royal Mail Christmas stamps alternate each year between religious and secular imagery. Our theme this year was British Christmas traditions.
At the turn of the 19th century, Christmas was hardly celebrated in Britain, most people didn’t even consider it a holiday. However by the end of the century it had become our biggest annual celebration taking the form that we know today. Many attributed Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as introducing some of the most prominent aspects of Christmas; in 1848, the Illustrated London News published a drawing of the Royal Family decorating a Christmas tree. Soon every home in Britain had a tree bedecked with fruit, sweets and candles. And it was from this we took our lead.
We look on traditions at Christmas time with such warmth and joy because of how they make us feel. The excitement of choosing the perfect tree, the fun of building the first snowman, the gathering of friends to sing carols. Our mini tableaux depict these various British family traditions.
Rather than the usual heavy, rich imagery of Christmas, we wanted a brightness to our stamps, so engaged US based artist Andrew Bannecker to bring a fresh perspective to our traditional scenes. Bannecker created each scene using a combination of Illustrator brushes and Bezier curves. Yet despite the technological approach to his work, the result exudes the warmth and happiness of a great family Christmas.
During our research phase of the project, looking over the back catalogue of previous stamps issues proved both inspirational and intimidating…
1962 National Productivity Year
Designed by stamp demi-god David Gentleman, these beautiful stamps are the first of over one hundred issues he’s designed to date. With a stripped back scandanavian-inspired, mid-century feel (which is now so vogue), these stamps have a beautiful blend of simple, bold colours and strong iconic graphics.
1989 Europa Toys and Games
Each year POST EUROP, the trade association that represents European public postal operators, announces a different stamp theme. In 1989 Dan Fern was commissioned to illustrate Children’s Toys and Games. Bold, colourful and primitive, these stamps depict a number of traditional play objects including a doll’s house, a rigged yacht and a crude robot made out of a cardboard box.
Appropriately styled like a children’s book, Dan’s artworks are packed full of detail but work beautifully at stamp size. We love the eye-catching value indicator, expressed in a big, bold, chunky font and in three different colours.
1989 Christmas. 800th Anniversary of Ely Cathedral
Among the most memorable of the Christmas issues is the 1989 set depicting Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire. Released to celebrate the cathedral's 800th anniversary, and portraying its most important architectural features, the stamps are stunningly printed in silver and gold. Another David Gentleman masterpiece.
1997 British Aircraft Designers
It doesn’t get much more inspiring and intimidating than this – these Turner Duckworth stamps from 1997 rank as some of the most iconic ever. Whilst your eye is drawn to the image of the aircraft flying through the sky, a closer look at the background reveals not just random shaped clouds, but profiles of the aeronautical engineers who designed each plane. Portraying each war machine with its mentor overseeing it is such a clever idea.
2010 Christmas with Wallace and Gromit
Want warmth and charm at Christmas? Then look no further than Royal Mail’s 2010 Christmas offering. The stamps feature the nation's favourite animated duo in a series of festive scenes, specifically created for the issue. We had the honour to work on the collateral that accompanied these stamps. Cracking project Gromit..
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